This is another fine installment in the excellent Commissario Guido Brunetti series, several of which we've already reviewed. The plot will be familiar to anyone who watched the second season of HBO's The Wire, though the criminality cuts to the heart of Italian society, rather than skirting the margins of Baltimore. Two things seem particularly notable here. First, Ms Leon's/Brunetti's view of the level of corruption affecting Italy has never been bleaker. Second, whether conscious or not, there's a real contrast drawn in the novel between the rather trivial pop politics of Brunetti's socialist wife and kids--whose current cause is agitating against plastic bottles--and the officer himself, who's seen as less politically committed though he's in the trenches waging a real war against crime, including governmental crime. The tension and the hypocrisy become especially obvious when their daughter gets involved in the investigation and the wife reacts in fury. The juxtaposition of the moral purity she imagines comes from using glass vs. the evil of informing on friends to stop a white slavery/prostitution ring makes it apparent why one would be hopeless about Italy.
(Reviewed:26-Nov-06)
Grade: (A)
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