From a Wall Street Journal review by Malcolm Forbes headlined “”Wandering Through Life’ Review: Donna Leon’s Journey”:

“Every profession leads to deformation,” writes Donna Leon in her memoir “Wandering Through Life.” She adds: “mine is crime.” The novelist then proceeds to come clean about the way her fertile imagination runs wild, turning innocent scenarios into fantasies of wrongdoing.

She buys prosecco in a shop, but in her mind’s eye she sees herself absconding with a couple of bottles of more expensive wine stuffed up her sleeves or into her boots. She envisions herself picking pockets, stealing stationery and slipping out of boutiques wearing layers of unpaid-for cashmere sweaters. And when she travels back and forth between Venice and Zurich by train, she constructs dramas in which the villainous protagonists are the unwitting passengers around her.