Commissario Brunetti, a sleuth equal to Easy Rawlins, Lou Harper, and Philip Marlowe, appreciates the subtle differences between justice and revenge, embarrassment and humiliation, compulsion and corruption. A master of bureaucratic misdirection and an astute judge of character, Brunetti skillfully navigates the canals of Venetian subterfuge, while remaining unusually close to his intuitive spouse. In Doctored Evidence, a Romanian housekeeper is accused of murdering her Euro-pinching employer. Only Brunetti believes in her innocence, and his investigation leads him to an astonishingly apt and scholarly conclusion. In Uniform Justice, Brunetti investigates the suspicious suicide of a young military cadet at a prestigious academy, and with customary aplomb finds the underlying cause for the young man's death. David Colacci capably narrates both works; although his voice is distinctly American, he handles the Italian pronunciations with ease. Both works belong in public libraries; very highly recommended.-Ray Vignovich, West Des Moines P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

While a bit too slow to rank among her best, Leon's 13th atmospheric Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery (after 2003's Uniform Justice) still offers many pleasures, including a clever puzzle. When greedy, curmudgeonly Maria Grazia Battestini is murdered, the Venetian police suspect her Romanian housekeeper, whom they shoot when she tries to evade questioning. The case seems closed until a neighbor returns from a trip, claiming the housekeeper's innocence. Hardworking, cynical Brunetti, devoted to his family, succulent meals and justice, an honest man in a corrupt police department, takes over the case. He finds that Battestini's several bank accounts were transferred out of Italy upon her death, the source of the money unknown. Brunetti suspects that her lawyer, Roberta Marieschi, and niece, Graziella Simionato, who shared power of attorney, were in cahoots and that the money came from blackmail. After several false leads and assiduous attention to detail, Brunetti discovers the key to the crime-pride, rather than greed, with the title a pun on the motive-meanwhile one-upping his workplace enemy, the ambitious, careless Lieutenant Scarpa. Leon evokes the real Venice, not the place of romantic novels or glitzy travel guides but the gritty, inbred city of dishonest politicians and hamlet-like neighborhoods filled with gossip. (Apr. 20) Forecast: Uniform Justice was the #1 Book Sense 76 title for September 2003. Aided by a four-city author tour and Penguin reissues of earlier Brunetti titles in paperback, this one will keep up the momentum for Leon, who has won the Crime Writers' Association's Silver Dagger. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Everyone joined in disliking the victim in Commissario Guido Brunetti's latest case--but who hated her enough to kill her? If Maria Grazia Battestini, 83, had lived for the ten years the doctor claims her body might well have lasted, it would have been a miserable decade for Florinda Ghiorghiu, the latest in a long line of long-suffering domestic servants, and her neighbor Assunta Gismondi, the graphic designer who regularly phoned the Questura at 4:00 a.m. to complain about the television blaring across the canal. When the old woman is beaten to death, overzealous officers pursue her live-in helper to the Romanian border, where she's killed as she flees from them, and then act indifferent (some wonderfully characteristic work here from Brunetti's despicable underling, Lt. Scarpa) when Signorina Gismondi returns from a trip to London to offer the servant an alibi. Brunetti, realizing that nobody else has any stake in reopening the investigation, patiently sifts through possible motives, from blackmail to illegal construction contracts to the AIDS that killed Signora Battestini's son five years ago. It's even clearer than in Brunetti's earlier cases (Uniform Justice, 2003, etc.), however, that his colleagues, variously lazy, stupid, and malignant, are more dangerous enemies than the inoffensive suspects could ever be. Following Brunetti on the case is like watching drops of water wear away stone, though it's clear there's no hope for the more general petrifaction of Venice that Leon masterfully tracks. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Leon's devoted American fans endured a seven-year wait before Uniformustice and Noble Radiance landed on our shores last year. Hardly any waiting this time, as Guido Brunetti makes a quick reappearance, once again embroiled in a case whose moral ambiguities weigh heavily on the beleaguered but warm-hearted Venice cop. An extremely unpleasant elderly woman, the scourge of her neighborhood, has been savagely murdered, and her Romanian housekeeper, herself killed while running from the police, has been tagged as the obvious perp. The facts don't add up, however, and Brunetti, over his superiors' objections, won't close the case. A familiar crime-fiction premise, to be sure, but Leon, as always, looks for nuance behind the formula. She finds it in the victim's relatives, all severely flawed figures but all sharing a bedrock humanity that resists caricature, and, of course, she finds it in Brunetti's lovingly detailed but never sentimentalized family life--always the greatest source of pleasure in a series that reminds us again and again just what character-driven really means. --Bill Ott Copyright 2004 Booklist