Uniform justice

'Complex and thought-provoking and lingers in the mind' Sunday TimesNeither Commissario Brunetti nor his wife Paola have ever had much sympathy for the Italian armed forces, so when a young cadet is found hanged, at Venice's elite military academy, Brunetti's emotions are complex: pity and sorrow at the death of a boy close in age to his own son, and contempt and irritation for the arrogance and high-handedness of the boy's teachers and fellow students. The young man is the son of an ex-politician, a man of an impeccable integrity all too rare in Italian politics.

But as Brunetti - and the indispensable Signorina Elettra - investigate further, no one seems willing to talk.

Is this the natural reluctance of Italians to involve themselves with the authorities, or is Brunetti facing a conspiracy of silence?'Silken prose and considerable charm . . . an unlovely story set in the loveliest of cities' Washington Post