A Refiner's Fire

Commissario Guido Brunetti returns with a gripping and powerful case about the murkiness of power and a test of loyalties

When two teenage gangs are arrested after clashing violently in one of Venice¿s campi, the son of a local hero is implicated. But when Commissario Guido Brunetti is asked by a wealthy foreigner to vet this man, Monforte, for a job, he discovers that Monforte might not be such a hero after all.

This seeming contradiction, and a brutal attack on one of Brunetti¿s colleagues by a possible gang member, concentrate Brunetti¿s attentions. Soon, he discovers the sordid hypocrisy surrounding Monforte¿s past, culminating in a fiery meeting of two gangs and a final opportunity for redemption.

A Refiner¿s Fire is Donna Leon at her very best: an elegant, sophisticated storyteller whose indelible characters become richer with each book, and who constantly interrogates the ambiguity between moral and legal justice.