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The gifted Venetian detective returns in his 31st case, this time investigating the Janus-faced nature of yet another Italian institution. What role can or should loyalty play in the life of a police inspector? It's a question Commissario Guido Brunetti must face when he is approached for a favour by Elisabetta Foscarini, a woman he knows only casually. However her mother was good to Brunetti's mother, so he feels obliged to at least look into the matter privately. Foscarini's son-in-law Enrico Fenzo has alarmed his wife by confessing their family might be in danger because of something he's involved with. Since Fenzo is an accountant, Brunetti logically suspects that the cause of danger is related to the finances of a client, yet his clients seem benign - an optician, a restaurateur, a charity established by his father-in-law. However when Foscarini's daughter's place of work is vandalized, Brunetti asks his own favours - that his colleagues assist his private investigation which soon turns official as they uncover the dark nature and the wobbly line between the criminal and non-criminal world. Written in an elegant, witty prose, Donna Leon uses the relatively small canvas of Venice for rips about Italian life, sexual styles and best of all the kind of ingrown business and political corruption that seems to lurk just below the surface. Endpapers have maps, 294pp with fairly large print.