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Content snapshot
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Violence
Some
A child's death; the investigation involves the marginalized Roma community
Language
Barely any
Mild language
Sexual Content
None
No sexual content
Substance Use
Barely any
Mild content
Emotional Intensity
Some
The specific invisibility of Roma children to Italian institutions; Brunetti's discomfort with a case where the prejudice of his colleagues is itself an obstacle
What this book is about
A young Gypsy girl is found drowned in a Venice canal, and Commissario Brunetti investigates in the Roma community — a community that has reason to distrust the police and whose members are not inclined to cooperate. The investigation forces Brunetti to reckon with the specific prejudice that surrounds Roma people in Italy and the way that institutional dismissal of their lives makes it easier for violence against them to go uninvestigated. Donna Leon's seventeenth Brunetti novel is the most directly about anti-Roma prejudice and the specific difficulty of investigating within a community whose experience of Italian institutions is one of exclusion.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
seventeenth Brunetti novel by Donna Leon
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