One afternoon, Commissario Guido Brunetti gets a frantic call from the director of a prestigious Venetian library. Someone has stolen pages out of several rare books. After a round of questioning, the case seems clear: the culprit must be the man who requested the volumes, an American professor from a Kansas university. The only problem—the man fled the library earlier that day, and after checking his credentials, the American professor doesn’t exist.

As the investigation proceeds, the suspects multiply. And when a seemingly harmless theologian, who had spent three years at the library reading the Fathers of the Church, turns up brutally murdered, Brunetti must question his expectations about what makes a man innocent, or guilty.

Commissario Brunetti #23

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Thank you so much for this Donna Leon book, which seems to be just the kind I like to read. And speaking of reading, the postcard is simply gorgeous!

This was my first Donna Leon book and it reads quite well. Although it is a mystery and the main character – Commissario Brunetti – is an agent of the law, I didn’t find the solving of the crime the most interesting part. The descriptions of Venice, the peculiarities of the Italian way of life and, mainly, the curiosities about the business of rare book collecting were what grabbed my attention.