Willful Behavior

A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery

By: Donna Leon

Narrated by: Steven Crossley

Mystery lovers everywhere are addicted to Donna Leon's ever-honorable Commissario Guido Brunetti and her portrayal of Venice's beautiful but sinister byways and canals.

In Willful Behavior, Brunetti is approached for a favor by one of his wife's students. Intelligent and serious, Claudia Leonardo asks for his help in obtaining a pardon for a crime once committed by her now-dead grandfather. Brunetti thinks little of it - until Claudia is found dead. Soon, another corpse and an extraordinary art collection lead Brunetti to long-buried secrets of Nazi collaboration and the exploitation of Italian Jews - secrets few in Italy want revealed.

Death in Venice: investigate more of Guido Brunetti's cases.©2002 Donna Leon and Diogenes Berlag AG Zurich (P)2011 AudioGO

Italy with a British accent

Italian setting, characters and culture. With a British accent?! Narrator good — just a poor match. Doesn’t convey the nuances of previous stories with distractions of mispronunciations etc.

Couldn't stand the narration

Where does Willful Behavior rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Near the bottom.

What did you like best about this story?

Guido Brunetti.

What didn’t you like about Steven Crossley’s performance?

He was the wrong person to narrate a Guido Brunetti story. I have listened to every Guido Brunetti story and David Colacci is the man!!!!!!!!!!! Mr. Crossley reminded me of A HARD DAY'S NIGHT and HELP! It was just too much for me - I listened because I wanted to hear the whole story but I won't re-listen.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Not really - couldn't get past the narration long enough.

Any additional comments?

Of all the Brunetti books this is my least favourite and I'm not sure how much of that is OTHER than the narration. I'll re-listen to the others.

Slow start but...

strong finish to a classic plotline. Leon pulls it off again. A good read indeed.

British accent narrator

British accent narrator is really distracting

Fairly ambitious story with honor subtext. Good tale in the collection

Disappointing Narration

The story was okay but the narrator was distracting with his British accent. You would think he would at least learn how to pronounce Italian names and other words. Actually made it hard to follow the plot. I enjoy this series but will avoid any other books with this narrator.

Disappointing narration

The story is above average for this series. But Steven Crossley With his British accent diminishes this audio version. His narration gives no nuance to any of the characters and if you are accustomed tolistening to Donna Leon‘s books narrated by David Colacci, It is quite disappointing.

English Accent???

While the story was as enjoyable as all the Brunetti mysteries, the performance was awful. Listening to an English actor made me feel I was listening to a Agatha Christie mystery - certainly not a story set in Venice.

Not the same

The characters just doesn’t have the warmth and depth — the connections to each other that David Colacci brings. It was well done, I suppose, but I was so terribly disappointed it wasn’t narrated by Colacci that I couldn’t get past the first chapter.

Signorina Elettra is NOT a London shopgirl

As did many other listeners, I had a very difficult time with this narrator. He is not a bad reader - this is simply NOT the series for him. He loses all of the Venetian personality of the story for me. The recurring female characters especially grated on my ear (Signorina Elettra, Paola Brunetti and Chiara Brunetti). Paola's aristocrat father was also way off the mark; to my ear he sounded like a weak, sniveling husk trying to live off the glories of the past (not the man we know from other books in the series).

I will not give complete blame to the narrator though, as I was shocked at one passage that refereed to Signorina Elettra responding "girlishly" - something we have not seem before or since from the sophisticated, elegant assistant.

The story was well developed and we met more colorful characters from Guido's past. The tale of trade in illicit artwork is perfect for the machinations of the rusty and ponderous Italian legal system. There are surprise discoveries and sad realizations. Guido makes mistakes and has to compromise justice - something that always breaks his heart. This book is a good addition to the series.

I, for one, would be happy to buy another copy and listen again if we could have David David Colacci narrate.

Wrong narrator for this series - can’t pronounce characters’ names

Really embarrassing that a professional voice actor didn’t bother to ask anyone how to pronounce a character’s name. The Italian flavor is key to these books and the mispronunciation mars the experience. Chee-ara? Really? Cringe