Order of Donna Leon Books

Step aside, noir masters and detective dynamos—there’s a new kind of mystery maestro in town, and her name is Donna Leon. Born on September 28, 1942, in Montclair, New Jersey, Donna Leon didn’t just rewrite the rulebook on European crime fiction—she elegantly outwrote it. And no, she’s not dead (thankfully), though the precise irony of that is rather delicious considering she’s spent most of her literary life killing people… on paper.

Let’s rewind. Leon was born into a world that didn’t know yet how deeply it needed Commissario Guido Brunetti, her now-legendary Venetian detective. Raised in a traditional Italian-American family, she pursued an academic path early on, receiving her bachelor’s degree from Seton Hall University and later a master's in literature from the University of Indiana. But if you thought she stopped there, think again. Her love affair with Europe—particularly Italy—was just beginning. She lived and worked in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and China, dabbling in everything from writing to teaching English literature, until she finally found her muse in Venice.

And that’s where the magic happened.

Despite having no desire for celebrity status—she’s famously private, even refusing to allow translations of her books into Italian—Leon rose to literary fame in the most paradoxical way. Her Brunetti novels, steeped in Venetian atmosphere and driven by a moral compass sharper than a stiletto blade, became international bestsellers. She paints a corrupt yet hauntingly beautiful Venice with such eloquence and restraint, it feels like the city itself is whispering secrets to you through fog-drenched alleyways.

But here’s the kicker: Donna Leon never meant to become a novelist. Nope. She wrote her first book, Death at La Fenice, on a whim in the early 1990s. She submitted it to a writing contest "just because," and wouldn’t you know it? She won. The judges must have known they were witnessing the birth of one of crime fiction’s most poetic voices. From there, it was a flood of brilliant murder mysteries—over 30 and counting—all centering on the deeply principled, opera-loving detective, Guido Brunetti.

Leon is an anomaly in every sense. She’s an American who writes about Italian crime but lives in Switzerland. She adores music (she’s even written a book about the Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi), loathes corruption, and never shies away from pointing a finger at the rotting bureaucratic heart of Italian society. And she does it all with a wink, a sigh, and an almost operatic grace.

Her accolades are as refined as her prose. She's won the CWA Silver Dagger, has been featured in The New York Times Best Seller List, and earned the German Corine Literature Prize. Still, she remains an iconoclast—eschewing fame, preferring her quiet life over the literary limelight.

So, who is Donna Leon?

She’s the elegant assassin of the written word. The woman who turned Venice into a crime scene so romantic, so morally fraught, and so richly layered, that readers all over the world find themselves swept into its canals with no hope—or desire—of escape.

And if you think her life is fascinating, just wait till you step into Brunetti’s shoes. One novel in, and you’ll be hooked. Venice will never feel the same again.