'Crime writing of the highest order' Guardian __________________________________ Once again
Commissario Guido Brunetti is willing to bend police rules for an acquaintance even though
Elisabetta Foscarini the woman who asks the favour is not really a friend. But her mother was
good to Brunetti's so he feels he has no choice but to repay the debt and agrees to look into
the matter 'privately' rather than as a police official. Her son-in-law has alarmed his wife
by telling her they might be in danger because of something he's involved with. Because Enrico
Fenzo is an accountant Brunetti suspects that the likely reason must be the finances of one of
his clients. Brunetti takes a look and finds little: one client is an optician another Fenzo`s
father-in-law whom he helped establish a charity another the owner of a restaurant. He is
about to tell his friend that he can find no reason for preoccupation when her daughter's place
of work is vandalised forcing Brunetti to turn his attention - still 'private' - to
Elisabetta's own family. What he discovers shows the Janus-faced nature of yet another Italian
institution as well as the wobbly line that attempts to differentiate between the criminal and
the non-criminal.
