Suffer the Little Children
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4.1 • 77 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An assault on a pediatrician reveals a web of corruption and deception in the New York Times–bestselling, Silver Dagger Award–winning series.
When Commissario Brunetti is summoned in the middle of the night to the hospital bed of a senior pediatrician, he is confronted with more questions than answers. Three men—a young Carabiniere captain and two privates from out of town—have burst into the doctor’s apartment in the middle of the night, attacked him, and taken away his eighteen-month-old baby boy.
What could have motivated an assault by the forces of the state so violent it has left the doctor mute? Who would have authorized such an alarming operation? At the same time, Brunetti’s colleague Inspector Vianello discovers a moneymaking scam between pharmacists and doctors in the city. But it appears as if one of the pharmacists is after more than money . . .
This is a smart, suspenseful novel in the series set in a beautifully realized Venice, a glorious city seething with small-town vice.
“Leon deserves her place not only with the finest international crime writers (Michael Dibdin and Henning Mankell, for example) but also with literary novelists who explore the agonies of the everyday (Margaret Drabble and Anne Tyler, among others).” —Booklist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Leon's 16th Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery, at once astringent yet lyrical, two rival police forces Brunetti and his Venetian colleagues and the carabinieri are both interested in a doctor who illegally adopts an Albanian infant. When three carabinieri break into the doctor's apartment and seize the child at night, they injure the doctor, leaving him mute. Much of the early action takes place in a hospital, and because Venetian hospitals appear only slightly less bureaucratic and Kafkaesque than their stateside counterparts, Leon's marvelous insights into Italian life, so sharp when she explores a military academy in Uniform Justice or glassblowers in Through a Glass, Darkly, aren't as fresh, sinister or compelling here. But once the IVs and bandages give way to vandalism at a pharmacy and the family secrets of a neo-Fascist plumbing tycoon, Leon regains her stride and the novel's last fifth is first-rate and masterful. Leon seldom delivers a "feel good" ending, choosing instead conclusions that are wise and inevitable while still being unsettling.
Customer Reviews
Good parts and not so good parts
I have read 13 books in this series and I love Guido Brunetti. But boy, I wish the author could let up on her snobbism against Catholics. She is really antagonistic towards the faithful. I wouldn’t be a Catholic if this religion was the way she depicts it to be. In her estimation, the only “good” Christian is a de-frocked priest. The rest of her Catholic characters are either nuts or evil.