Uniform Justice

For over a decade, Donna Leon has topped European bestseller lists and captivated fans throughout the world with her series of mysteries featuring the shrewd, charismatic Commissario Guido Brunetti. Guiding us through contemporary Venice?s dark undercurrents of personal politics, corruption, and intrigue, Donna Leon?s is "crime writing of the highest order: powerful, relevant and too full of human failings" (The Guardian).

This time, Commissario Brunetti faces an unsettling case that, because he is the father of a young son, hits him especially close to home. The body of a student has been found hanged in Venice?s elite, highly cloistered military academy. The young man is the son of a doctor and former politician, a member of Parliament who had an impeccable integrity all too rare in Italian politics. Dr. Moro is clearly devastated by his son?s death, but while both he and his apparently estranged wife seem convinced that the boy?s death could not have been suicide, neither appears eager to help in the investigation of the mysterious circumstances in which he died. Bolstered by the help the elegant and crafty Signorina Elettra, and the cooking and sympathetic ear of his wife, Paola, Commissario Brunetti sets off on an investigation that gets him caught up in the strange and stormy politics of his country?s powerful elite.

When Brunetti plunges into Dr. Moro?s political career and the circumstances of the doctor?s estrangement from his wife, he discovers unsettling details. How to explain the mysterious hunting accident in which Signora Moro was involved, and the fact that her marriage crumbled so soon after? As he investigates, Brunetti is faced with a wall of silence, because the military, who protects its own, and civilians, even at the cost of their lives, are unwilling to talk. Is this the natural reluctance of Italians to involve themselves with the authorities, or is Brunetti facing something altogether darker?

Uniform Justice is a riveting, pitch-perfect murder mystery — the work of a truly masterful storyteller. Conjuring contemporary Venice in exquisite and alluring detail, Donna Leon offers what has been widely hailed as the finest installment yet of the Commissario Guido Brunetti series.

"Classic, classy detective fiction, with its unique Venetian setting and a humane and down-to-earth protagonist." Manchester Evening News (UK)

"Despite the serious issues they raise, Leon's books shimmer in the grace of their setting and are warmed by the charm of their characters. As a thinking man, Brunetti reads Cicero for moral direction, looks to his wife for doses of cynical realism and humbly consults his secretary, the terrifyingly efficient Signorina Elettra, on practical matters. But it is as a man of sensibility that this endearing detective most engages us. On his slow walks through Venice, he will go out of his way to exchange greetings with a myna in a pet shop or admire a woman's legs in a coffee bar — quietly celebrating the way life goes on, even in an unjust world." Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

"[Brunetti] long ago joined the ranks of the classic fictional detectives." T.J. Binyon, The Evening Standard (UK)

"A new Donna Leon book about Venice Police Commissario Guido Brunetti — the 12th in a memorable series — is ready for our immediate pleasure. Leon is probably the best mystery writer you've never heard of — unless you've picked up her best-selling books at foreign airports or bought copies of the British editions on the internet. She uses the relatively small and crime-free canvas of Venice for riffs about Italian life, sexual styles and — best of all — the kind of ingrown business and political corruption that seems to lurk just below the surface." Dick Adler, The Chicago Tribune

"There?s atmosphere aplenty in Uniform Justice...Brunetti is a compelling character, a good man trying to stay on the honest path in a devious and twisted world." Jody Jaffe, The Baltimore Sun

"Superb....An outstanding book, deserving of the widest audience possible, a chance for American readers to again experience a master practitioner?s art." Publisher?s Weekly (starred review)

"American readers, having endured seven long years without a new Guido Brunetti novel, can now celebrate the return of Leon?s world-weary Venetian commissario....It?s high time this series earns the accolades in the U.S. it has been receiving in Europe for years." Bill Ott, Booklist (starred review)

"A powerful indictment of an Italian society." Kirkus Reviews

"Deeply sympathetic portrait of a truth-seeker at war with monied time-servers, but Brunetti?s reflections giving point and poignancy to the conflict." Literary Review

Donna Leon has lived and taught in Iran, China, and Saudi Arabia.