There's a body in the canal, a bloated man with a neck the size of the avarage waistband. Stabbed. No identification. One shoe. So begins the 21st in the Commissario Brunetti police procedural series by Donna Leon, all set in and around Venice. This one takes our hero across the bridge connecting the city to the mainland and Mestre, where his sensibilities are assaulted by the irksomeness of traffic jams, the alien manners of upmarket shoe retailers and a visit to a meat processing plant that will have you retching. Turns out Brunetti remembers the victim from a farmers' protest some years back. Turns out he was an animal lover, a softy vet, and a happily settled family man until …

Brunetti is unlike other fictional cops. Not for him angsty theatrics or the need to wallow in existentialism. He has no special powers of instinct or insight. He collars his crims by plain old hard work, and when there is a choice between nailing a suspect and a lunch of meatballs with children Raffi, Chiara and beloved wife Paola, the grub wins every time. Add a glass of prosecco, let him stretch out on the sofa and the dude will start quoting Virgil.

You don't need to have read any of the previous Brunetti books – which started in 1992 with Death at La Fenice – to grasp the tectonic movements. Each is a self-contained story and, while over time the back stories of the characters have obviously evolved, Leon manages on each outing deftly to re-familiarise you with the context of their lives. In Beastly Things all the regulars are here: Vianello, Brunetti's dependable sidekick, is going through some soul-searching; Pucetti (dim but useful) has learned how to use Photoshop; pathologist Rizzardi is ever–sharp and quick to identify the victim's condition as Madelung's Disease; self-aggrandising station chief Patta is still useless after all these years. And the enigmatic, but sometimes too-perfect PA Signorina Elletra has gone all creative with EU budget small print and secured Brunetti a brand-new top-end computer. With the internet, and all that.

But the most charming indicator of the passage of time is seen in Brunetti's children, Raffi (now mid-teens) and Chiara (early teens). In Beastly Things, Chiara is nudging towards militant vegetarianism, something Brunetti and Paola are struggling with (food is a big thing in the Brunetti household). At least Raffi's schooly interest in BIG ISSUES (war, death, blah) is an area in which they can both indulge in a spot of wine-fuelled parental bullshitting.

Clues as to where in latter-day Italian political history Brunetti's size nines are planted are rare, though a coy reference in Beastly Things to the "penetrant vulgarity of the current administration" points you somewhere in the bunga bunga direction. Patta's longevity in the top job is attributed to his strategic reluctance to tackle the mafia. And Patta's creepy understudy Scarpa is trying to fit up trusty police-boat pilot Foa for nicking fuel. So you get the idea that things are much as they've always been, but more up to date. While there is often an ethical core to these stories (the problem of greed, mostly), they are personal, too: places, people and events trigger Brunetti's memories of his past. So it is that we learn that his mother used to be a bit fussy about the type of parmesan she'd put on the table. Reggiano or nothing.

Any of the Brunetti books would make a good holiday companion, largely because Guido and Paola (an academic devoted to Henry James) are people you would like as friends. Maybe this is why you sense that Leon fervently enjoys writing these stories. But beware, no matter what your holiday destination, Venice will always be with you. If you know the city and the lagoon already, you will be in familiar territory with the vaporetti and traghetti, palazzi and tramezzini. If you know Venice only by image or reputation, you will want to be there, map in hand, your senses primed for exploration. No guide would be better than Guido Brunetti.