Review
The corpse of an American sergeant in a stinking Venetian canal is written off as a common-or-garden mugging, the death of a woman doctor on the American military base is carefully rigged as suicide; under heavy official pressure to go along with both theories Commissario Brunetti follows his own nose in a most impressive second outing. (Kirkus UK)
Something different for Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti, whose first case (Death at La Fenice, 1992) so expertly resurrected the closed-circle whodunit. This time, the murder of Sgt. Michael Foster, public health inspector at the American military hospital at Vicenza, produces such a pronounced lack of reaction - Brunetti's officious boss Patti insists it be written off as a mugging; somebody plants cocaine in Foster's quarters in the hope of heading off further questions; even Foster's lover and commanding officer insists she has no idea why he's been killed - that the fix is clearly in with either the American military or the Italian police. Patti pulls Brunetti off the case to work a burglary from a Grand Canal palazzo, but that - and more sinister high-level skullduggery - are predictably tied in too. No whodunit, but a measured, thoughtful conspiracy investigation that goes a long way toward extending Leon's range. This is definitely an author to watch. (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
The second novel to feature Guido Brunetti, commissario of the Venice Police. Brunetti confronts the grisly sight of the body of an American soldier in a canal. He becomes suspicious and discovers toxic waste-dumping and a high-level cover-up that extends from the Mafia to the US Army.
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