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Content snapshot
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Violence
Some
A murder investigation; drug trafficking is the context; institutional corruption is the theme
Language
Barely any
Mild language
Sexual Content
Barely any
Mild content
Substance Use
Some
Drug trade is the criminal context
Emotional Intensity
Some
The specific way that Italian political life protects the powerful from the consequences of their connections; Brunetti's careful navigation between what he knows and what he can prove
What this book is about
The body of a drug lord's Italian lawyer is found on a train arriving in Venice — a murder that connects to the heroin trade Commissario Guido Brunetti has always avoided directly confronting. His superior Vice-Questore Patta, whose interest in the case is political rather than investigative, wants the matter handled without generating headlines. Donna Leon's fourth Brunetti novel is the most directly concerned with the intersection of organized crime and Italian political power, and uses the specifically Venetian relationship between the city's institutions and its criminal economy to examine what justice means when power protects power.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
fourth Brunetti novel by Donna Leon
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