2008-06-11 "The shoe was red, ..."

This is the third in Donna Leon's excellent series of murder mysteries set in contemporary Venice. The second, `Death in a Strange Country', had as its underlying theme the perils of uncontrolled pollution. This novel opens on a similar theme as we find ourselves in Marghera, the blighted industrial quarter of the Venetian mainland. But the red shoe of the victim - "the red of the Ferrari Testarossa" - points to the more moral pollution of murder and the dark, seedy underworld of banking and rentals, rents of properties and rents of bodies.

Commissario Brunetti's character is further deepened in this novel, as we learn more about him and his family background. For instance, we meet his mother for the first time. And for the first time his boss, Patta, uses the word `please' when making a request. Brunetti's benevolent relationship with his wife is also shown to be based on real trust. I laughed at their competition when visiting art galleries to find the ugliest depicted Christ child.

If I have a complaint, it is with the denouement in the final chapters. The offender confesses too suddenly, given his vast experience of the legal world. He would have denied Brunetti's allegations at greater length before the evidence caught up with him. Apart from this incongruity, I have no hesitation in recommending this title, and look forward now to reading the fourth in the series.