Earthly Remains Donna Leon, Atlantic Monthly, 320 pages, $25

Commissario Guido Brunetti’s blood pressure is soaring. His doctor orders an R& R break from his Venice police job. So, he’s at a friend’s villa on an island in the Venetian Lagoon mostly rowing and reading. But when an elderly man he befriends vanishes, Brunetti finds himself back in the investigative business.

While the particulars of the case remain a mystery to the very end, the new book takes on an issue that has turned up frequently in recent Brunetti books: horrific environmental damage that modern commerce is inflicting on Venice’s diminishing beauty. Brunetti is, as always, dogged, sly and successful. Though, at the book’s conclusion, readers are left in the dark about his blood pressure.