Donna Leon, the best-selling American crime-fiction writer, has long made Venice her home, with the lagoon city her inspiration for a series of subtle, complex and seductive mystery novels. This is a murky Venice, far from the tourist traps, but offers a moral map to the city and a mirror on the self-serving nature of Italian justice. Along the way are enough views on Venetian food, palaces and people to enliven any stay in Venice.

The latest mystery, Suffer The Little Children, features, as always, the cynical Inspector Brunetti immersed in the seamier side of city life –in this case, the trade in new-born babies. This is “justice, one person at a time,” with murders tending to happen off the page as the writer is more interested in moral dilemmas, the detective’s family, and everyday Venetian life. 

Local life features strongly in her previous novel, Through A Glass Darkly, which looks at the secretive world of the Murano glass-making factories. Glassmaking has thrived on the island of Murano for centuries, but this story skilfully blends in murder and murky waters, including the environmental pollution of the lagoon.

In Donna Leon’s own life, music, and Baroque opera in particular, means more to her than writing. Donna has even created her own orchestra, Il Complesso Barocco. In fact, Leon’s first novel was inspired by plotting how a disliked real-life conductor could be murdered at Venice opera house – fictionally, of course. The result was the best-selling Death at The Fenice, the phoenix-like opera house that was recently reborn from the flames. If not plotting mysteries in Venice, Donna Leon travels the world on book tours, or on singer-scouting jaunts, enjoying the best music wherever she is. 

What’s your strongest sensation when you get back home to Venice?

It’s a sound. When I get on a boat and hear people speaking Veneziano (Venetian dialect) I feel very much at home with the sound of the dialect, which I don’t speak but understand. What I miss most when away from Venice is the quiet. In any city, I’m appalled most often by the noise, even in the hotels.

What about free time?

On boats, I’m the “book police” - I always look down and see what people are reading. There’s so much bad writing about Venice, mostly by people who don’t live there. If I have a free afternoon, I read. To produce a book a year, all I have to write is a page a day so I really have a lot of free time.

How can you best get a sense of your adoptive city?

Try to get lost. Go to San Marco or the Rialto Bridge and start walking, with no guide book. Just walk and look. Escape the masses in Cannaregio (the northern district), by the Misericordia waterfront, or in the end of Castello district, but every year it’s more difficult to escape the crowds.

Does Venice still surprise you?

Occasionally I see things I haven’t seen before. In a calle (street) by the Pieta church there’s a 16^th-century plaque on the wall saying that if you abandon your babies there, you will be excommunicated – I’ve been walking past that for 40 years – this element of surprise is one of the great joys of living in Venice. 

Why the move to Venice in the first place?

I was (teaching) in Saudi, which was desperately awful, so I decided I would go to a place where I had only been happy, and where I had friends who were as close as family, so my move in 1981 was completely emotional, not art-historical – I went where most of the people I loved lived.

How do you fit in to the local community?

I don’t want to be famous where I live, so my books aren’t translated into Italian. I’ve lived in Cannaregio since 1981 and my best friends live there. I know where the bread shops are. The area is saved because it’s so big and so unfashionable, near the Ghetto and the train station, so people don’t want to live there. From my apartment, it’s 62 steps down to get the mail from the postman. Every time I leave, I bump into lots of people, and I like that human contact. These are people I’ve known for 20 years. They know I’m an American writer but don’t have a real idea that I’m a famous person.

Food features highly in your fiction

I feel food deeply –here, one eats well twice a day. For me, it’s risotto with asparagus and artichokes, and in three months time, pumpkin risotto – it’s like dying and going to heaven! In Italy, rather than make a simple cheese and tomato sandwich, it’s more civilised to make an insalata caprese, with mozzarella, tomato, basil and a lot of olive oil– you’re eating the same thing but it’s so much better.

Do you appreciate the musical side of Venice?

Save your money and don’t buy a ticket at La Fenice opera house. I love well-played music and good singing. Occasionally, someone who can whip the orchestra into shape comes by –but in Venice they are usually second-rate singers, and they very seldom do Baroque music. I prefer Zurich or London for music.

Where do you recommend for a leisurely dinner in Venice?

Italians go for the food, not the view – the view is a distraction. I go to Testiere, a very good fish restaurant, and Saraceno, by the Rialto Bridge. There’s also the restaurant on the island of Vignole that you get to by boat – it’s as downmarket as you can get, plagued by mosquitoes, but great food.  I have similar tastes to my fictional hero Inspector Brunetti, not the Count, his snobbish father-in-law, who has hot and cold running service!

Is Venice becoming a theme park?

It has always been, to a certain degree. People don’t object to tourism. What they object to are masses of poor tourists who come and bring their own lunch, because they don’t bring a lot of money to the city. But do they have fewer rights than a rich person? That’s a question I wouldn’t like to answer. But lot of visitors have no idea what they’re seeing – there’s a list of places to tick off - and Venice is on the list.

What about the future of Venice?

My pessimism is planetary. Venice is becoming unliveable. If the waters do rise, nothing will help As for Moses (Venice’s controversial tidal barrier), the decisions to build it will be made on money, and who your friends are, and who gets the contracts. Environmentally, I feel we’re doomed; we might have ten years. It feels so little-Dutch-boy-with-the-finger-in-the-dyke. We’re in the oven and the temperature is rising…

You seem to feel more at home with dark endings in your books

Well, I live in Italy. The Italian political scene is commedia dell’arte.  I’m pretty cynical about the criminal justice system in Italy.

You call yourself a “recovering academic”, does that you mean you feel closer to Paola, Inspector Brunetti’s feisty wife, herself an academic?

Paola’s got to put up with the nonsense of an academic institution, and with her colleagues, middle-aged male academics with Olympic class condescension. After 60, a woman should not be condescended to anymore – or she should be given one of those sports whistles they have in basketball games - and have the right to blow the whistle!

I hear you always combine your world book tours with musical events  

In Zurich, I was asked by my publishers: “Donna, would you do a reading in Munich, with an opera on either side?” I created the Complesso Barocco with Alan, (the orchestra’s musical director) but I am Alan’s groupie – I’m a sounding-board, but sometimes I’ll find a singer and ask him to audition her.

You say that music is your “night job”

That’s my disingenuous-sounding sense of the importance of crime fiction in the world! I’m really proud of the Complesso Barocco’s Handel recordings as an historical record of how the music was played. I’m not proud of my murder mysteries in the same way – it comes from my awareness that one of them is the music of Handel, and the other is murder mysteries. I’m not Jane Smiley or Margaret Atwood - I’m a murder mystery writer.  It’s not British understatement, it’s American honesty!

What about your “day job”?

I’ll always continue to write the books because they’re so much fun, they make me laugh so much. They’re funny in English but none of the translations so far have managed to capture the wit of the books. There’s no word for wit in Italian.

Any new projects simmering away?

Following my book on the adoption business, I’m working on one that is probably about religious cults. I’m also toying with the idea of writing a cookbook as my British publisher is asking me. I’ll carry on writing - and when it’s not fun, I’ll stop!

For more on Donna Leon’s books, see her publisher’s official website: www.randomhouse.co.uk/minisites/donnaleon. For more on Venice, read the Insight Guide to Venice by Lisa Gerard-Sharp (order through: www.insightguides.com)