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A professor fears her high school-aged son is taking drugs, someone pushes her accountant husband off a short Venetian footbridge and a woman suffering from dementia receives hundreds of euros in inexplicable cosmetics coupons from her pharmacist.
Of such events does Donna Leon weave her languid spell of crime in Venice — in which Commissario Guido Brunetti is the most educated, sophisticated and restrained ace cop imaginable — food and wine and wandering the cobblestones and canals of his marvellous city as crucial to sleuthing as forensic clues.
As Brunetti reads the Greek classic Antigone at bedtime, the cerebral Temptation of Forgiveness (Atlantic Monthly Press, 320 pages, $26) plays out by asking if Brunetti’s loyalty is to the laws of the state regardless of the consequences.
We know from page 1 that the feds have nailed legendary New York gang-busting cop Denny Malone, head of a special squad that operates by its own rules.
Could the way he got into trouble...