Beyond the Book: Background information when reading Blood From A Stone

Beyond the Book

This article relates to Blood From A Stone

Donna Leon was born in the USA but has lived in Venice for about 25 years. Previously she lived in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, England, Iran and China. She says that the idea for the series came about in the early ’80s when she and a friend were in a dressing room at La Fenice (Venice's principle theatre) chatting with the conductor and his wife, and they began to talk of wanting to murder a certain conductor. Something clicked..."and since we were in a conductor’s dressing room, I thought hmm where, how?..."

She is a professor of English Literature at a university near Venice and also the crime reviewer for the Sunday Times newspaper (UK), and an expert on opera. She admits that the character of Brunetti's wife, Paola, is based somewhat on herself!

Series Order
- Death at La Fenice (UK 1992)
- Death in a Strange Country (UK 1993)
- Dressed for Death (UK 1994)
- Death and Judgment (UK 1996)
- Acqua Alta (UK 1996)
- The Death of Faith (1997)
   (also known as Quietly In Their Sleep)
- A Noble Radiance (UK 1998, US 2003)
- Fatal Remedies (UK 1999)
- Friends in High Places (UK 2000)
- A Sea of Troubles (UK 2001)
- Wilful Behaviour (UK 2002)
- Uniform Justice (UK & US 2003)
- Doctored Evidence (UK & US 2004).
- Blood From A Stone (2005)
- Through A Glass Darkly (2006)

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This "beyond the book article" relates to Blood From A Stone. It originally ran in May 2005 and has been updated for the April 2006 paperback edition. Go to magazine.