I've yet to read a Bruntetti book I don't relish reading. Though 23 years old now, this book is extremely topical. It involves ..... no what it really involves isn't revealed until quite well into the book. Let's not spoil it. If you love the central characters as I do, and Venice too, you won't be disappointed. ( )

While I like the mystery and the main character in this series, I find it a bit depressing that every time it seems that corruption and politics interfere with the course of justice.. ( )

Donna Leon’s Death and Judgement is Book #4 of her very popular Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery series.
It is a very complex, very interesting, well-crafted plot. Our main character is Commissario Guido Brunetti, He is an excellent policeman and detective and a man with a very deep, moral, ethical character. (His very moral and compassionate character must be a curse at times in Italy’s very complex culture, where it seems even the most commonplace transaction is frought with corruption and possible criminality.)
As usual, the city of Venice with its history and atmosphere is also a main character.
Death and Judgement is a very tense, difficult and dark read. It will take me a long time to get over the ending.
***** ( )

A murder mystery with an ethical thread. Men who deal in trafficing women for prostitution and who order, purchase and distribute tapes of rape and murder of women in war-torn places. All three men are murdered by an appalled female accomplice when she finds what the tapes contain. There is a line some will not cross when others do not even see it. ( )

The novel starts with a tragedy - a truck driver loses control while coming down the mountains and it turns out that the truck has a few too many passengers - trafficked women from Eastern Europe end up dead on the mountain slopes. And then everyone forgets about them until they tie into the death of an important lawyer. In some ways this is one of the darker entries in the series - human trafficking and women abuse are never an easy topic and these lie at the heart of this novel. It is also a bit more explicit than the rest of the entries. The story ties with the Yugoslavian wars (in the worst possible ways). But the novel still has Venice as its main character - but even it is subdued under the horrors which people can inflict on other people. ( )