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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another winner from Leon, October 30, 2002
I continue to be an enormous fan of the Commisario Brunetti series. For those of you who may have missed my earlier reviews, Donna Leon teaches English for the University of Maryland Extension near Venice and has lived in Italy for many years. She portrays the flavor of Italian life vividly, and it's clear that while she must love living there, petty and not-so-petty corruption is rampant. She makes delightfully wicked little comments. For example, the Carabineri major, interviewed by Brunetti on an American army post - not base, that's for the Air Force - waxes on about the characteristics of Americans. They tend to be arrogant, of course, but Americans are really too insecure to be truly arrogant, "unlike the Germans." Classic. Brunetti is walking home through "battalions of ravaging tourists who centered their attacks on the area around San Marcos. Each year it grew harder to have patience with them, to put up with their stop-and-go walking, with their insistence on walking three abreast through even the narrowest calles. There were times when he wanted to scream at them, even push them aside, but he contented himself by taking out all of his aggressions through the single expedient of refusing to stop, or in any way alter his course, in order to allow them a photo opportunity. Because of this, he was sure that his body, back and elbow appeared in hundreds of photos and videos. He sometimes contemplated the disappointed Germans looking at their summer videos during the violence of the North Sea storm as they watched a purposeful, dark-suited Italian walk in front of Tante Gerda or an Onkel Franz, blurring, if only for a moment the lederhosen-clad tourists" with what was probably the only real Italian they would see during their stay. An American soldier, Sgt. Michael Foster, an American public health inspector at the American military hospital in Vicenza, has been found floating in one of the Venetian canals. In an act of true heroism, two policemen jump in the water - the water being so dirty, hence the heroism - and drag him out. Brunetti's superior would like nothing better than to have the case buried, because the idea of an American being killed in Venice would ruin the tourist trade. Brunetti purposefully manipulates his boss into thinking the murder might have been committed elsewhere - must think of tourism, of course - so he can be authorized to travel to the man's post and investigate. An army captain, Dr. Peters, a woman doctor, who had come to Venice to identify the body in the morgue, had vomited from what Brunetti thought was from fear, when she saw how the man had been killed, by a knife plunging directly through the ribs into the heart. He suspects something is rather odd about this case, especially when he finds some cocaine that was not well hidden in the dead soldier's apartment, apparently after it had been thoroughly searched by the military authorities. The case becomes more complicated as both he and the Carabinieri major are politely warned off the case after they discover a connection between the dead soldier, a sick boy, contracts for the disposal of toxic waste, Brunetti's father-in-law, and the ostensible suicide by heroin overdose of Dr. Peters, not to mention the theft of some famous paintings from a prominent businessman. As with many of her other books, you are left at the end deeply saddened by the corruption, the illicit use of power and its effect on Brunetti, who, despite all, struggles on trying to stay an honest cop. He is a wonderful character.
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by Donna Leon
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by Donna Leon
by Donna Leon
by Donna Leon
