Death at La Fenice (1992), the first novel by American academic and crime-writer Donna Leon, is the first of the internationally best-selling Commissario Brunetti mystery series, set in Venice, Italy.

The novel won the Japanese Suntory prize,[1] and its sequel is Death in a Strange Country (1993).

A world-famous German opera conductor has died at La Fenice, and Commissario (Detective) Guido Brunetti pursues what appears to be a murder investigation without leads.

Leon, who completed a doctorate in Indiana, specialising in 18th-century novelists, is an ex-pat American who lives in Venice.

When she finished the book she stashed it away and forgot about it until submitting it for the Suntory prize in Japan.