Friends in High Places
By Donna Leon.
One lovely Saturday in spring while lolling on his sofa and reading about ancient Persia, Guido Brunetti a Commissario of the Venice police gets a visit from a bureaucrat in charge of finding and recording changes made to historical buildings. The Brunetti’s apartment appears not exist according to the paperwork and this is just the first conundrum to be solved in this ninth mystery of the strong excellent series by Leon.
A few months later Brunetti gets a call from this same man Franco Rossi. He is asking for help but before he can make his problem known he is found dead in such a way to suggest an accident. Brunetti knows better.
A side story is the problem with the drug scene that is now appearing and involves Brunetti’s boss’s son. Brunetti knows that if this boy should be punished, but he is aware that he would be signing his death warrant if he proceeds to investigate, as he wants to.
Brunetti asks himself and his wife to speculate on how they have both changed since they were young college students when they were liberal and wanted to change the world. Now they are both increasingly disillusioned about how they adapt to the way things are and always have been in Venice.
This book is worth reading because of the strong writing of the highest order, and the way the lives of Brunetti, his wife and children are a part of the plot itself. All of us as we live in this world have to compromise and to do it and do the next right thing is the challenge. Brunetti does this well.
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