One of the things I love the most about these books is the relationship Brunetti has with his wife, Paola and in this book that relationship is put to the test from page 5.

 

There has been an act of vandalism against a travel agency and Brunetti is called in the middle of the night to go to the Questura and take care of things. Especially because the person responsible for the vandalism is his wife. How to act when their careers and personal lives intersect in such a violent way? And, what to do when you also throw in there a murder?

 

Four stars!

 

[I'm counting this for my Cruisin' Thru The Cozies 2014 Reading Challenge and as the letter "F" in the 2014 Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge]

Even though it’s fun reading mindless mysteries, it’s always satisfying to find ones that have some kind of moral dilemma at their core that the hero must resolve. I had never read Donna Leon, who has taught for the University of Maryland in Venice, Italy for many years, but she weaves just such conundra into her police procedurals starring Commissario Brunetti of the Venice police department.
Brunetti is called out of bed one night to come to the station. His wife has been arrested for throwing a rock through the window of a travel agency. Apparently, this agency organized sex tours to Thailand and the Far East for Italian men, and Brunetti’s wife, Paola, thought something should be done about it. Despite Brunetti’s argument that the agency’s activities are not illegal, she refuses to compromise, and when word gets out to the press that a police official’s wife has been arrested, his career is put in jeopardy. Worse is to come when the owner of the travel agency is found strangled and the ripples caused by Paola’s rock arrive at unexpected beaches.
An important clue to Brunetti’s ultimate resolution of the investigation is that the finances of the murdered man were completely above board and untainted by schemes to avoid taxes. One policeman even remarks that cheating on one’s taxes was justification for almost any crime. No jury would convict if the defendant simply stated he had committed the crime to avoid taxes. Brunetti soon uncovers a scheme that involves the purchase and resale of outdated medicines that are transshipped to Africa and then to poor countries after having been sold to international aid agencies. Paola’s rock inadvertently provided the cover for a killing that was already foreordained.
Brunetti has to suffer through the typical administrivia, and in one delightful little game invented by a colleague, they manage to make it through the myriad administrative instructional lectures. Before each lecture the participants decide on a list of common buzzwords they know they’ll hear during the speech. Each person then picks a list of five of the words they believe will come up the most often. During the lecture, they place a coin on their card each time the word is heard and the person accumulating the most coins on his/her sheet wins all the coins of all the players. In one amusing scene, one of Brunetti’s friends asks a question in such a way as to elicit an answer that will supply several of the words she needs and wins the round.