Book Review; Drawing Conclusions

Donna Leon’s twentieth and latest Commissario Brunetti tale is again an interesting insight into the machinations of the Italian Justice system.

Late one night, Brunetti is suffering through a dinner with Vice Questore Patta and his nasty Lieutenant Scarpa when his telefonino rings. A old woman’s body has been discovered in an apartment by her neighbour when she went to pick up her mail. Brunetti sees some signs of force on the old woman—the obvious wound on her head, what could be a bruise near her collarbone—but they could just as easily have been from the radiator near where she fell. When the medical examiner rules that the woman died of a heart attack, it seems there is nothing for Brunetti to investigate. But he can’t shake the feeling that something may have created conditions that led to her heart attack, that perhaps the woman was threatened.

With the help of his side-kick, Inspector Lorenzo Vianello and the computer-savvy Signorina Elettra Zorzi, Brunetti gets to the truth, and finds some measure of justice.

Once again a well constructed mystery with insights into Brunetti’s private life thrown in for good measure.

This novel again confirms Donna Leon as one of my “must read at all costs” authors.