My foot surgery is on April 12, but I don’t expect to be out of action for more than a day, although I won’t be mobile for a few days.

I’ll probably do a Recovery Journal for three or four days and then get on with my life.

At the moment, I have an embarrassment of riches waiting for me.

I started the first one yesterday, So Shall You Reap, a Commissario Brudo  Brunetti Mystery.

I love this series; the Commissario is a gentle, family-loving food, cheese, and wine lover and wise detective who also paints an honest portrait of beautiful Venice and its struggle to survive climate change, building decay, flooding, the rude horses of visitors, and crude and wealthy Americans who buy the most beautiful houses and push Venetians out of their city.

Very few Venetians live in  Venice today; they can’t afford it. Brunetti also deals with corrupt and arrogant political bureaucrats and the chaos that is a government in all of Italy.

The Comissario is married to wealthy Paola; their apartment will never be sold out from under them. In the first chapter, he and Paola are tasting four kinds of exotic cheeses sent to them by a cheese farmer in the North of Italy.

Somebody will be found in one of the canals somewhere in the next chapter, and Brunetti will forget about his favorite pasta, and we’ll be off to the races.

There is never a lot of violence or savagery in this series, and it is both dignified and gentle. Venice is a beautiful backdrop, and I love this series.

Whenever there’s a crime, Brunetti either walks – he loves architecture and old churches – or motors off in a police boat.

Next up is a new literary novel – Pineapple Street –  from young and famous Knopf Editor Jesse Jackson, one of the most anticipated books of the Spring. It’s a chronicle of the life and dramas of a wealthy Brooklyn – yes, Brooklyn, family.

That’s all I know about it other than that it has the critics drooling. I am coming to appreciate this blossoming generation of first-rate female writers. They are now dominating the fiction market for the first time and writing a lot of great stuff.

I have a good feeling about it. Knopf is a pretty fussy publisher.

Online, I bought a Large Print (I don’t usually like Large Print books for me) edition of William Kent Krueger’s This Tender Land for $7. I’m liking this Minnesota mystery writer a lot. I know nothing about this book yet.

Along with Commissario Brunetti, I love the P.D. James Adam Dagliesh mystery series.

Daglies, a recently widowed poet, is perhaps the most intelligent detective I know of in a mystery series. He is one of my favorite characters.

I found this one in a used bookstore in Williamstown, Mass. It cost $6.

In the same place, I found a used LeCarre in great shape for $5, one of the few LeCarre books I haven’t read. The title is Agent Running In A Field.

LeCarre’s books are never a risk for me. I don’t think he was capable of writing a bad one.

I don’t expect to finish all of these books in a week or so, but if I don’t get to them, I’ll be grateful for them later.