A Question of Belief

Venice is in the grip of a heatwave, and Commissario Brunetti is about to leave for the mountains to spend time with his family. Before he goes, Ispettore Vianello brings him a private worry. Vianello's aunt has become fixated on horoscopes and has been taking large sums out of the family business.

Vianello asks permission to follow her, and Brunetti agrees to an unofficial inquiry. The trail ends at the flat of a man named Stefano Gorini. Who he is, and why the aunt is paying him, is the first puzzle.

A second one arrives from a friend of Brunetti's who works at the Commune. Irregularities have turned up at the Courthouse, touching Judge Luisa Coltellini and an usher named Araldo Fontana, whose record has always been spotless. Brunetti asks Signorina Elletra to look into it while he is away on holiday.

Then word comes that Fontana has been killed in a violent attack, and Brunetti goes back to the city to lead the investigation. Nobody has an obvious reason to want a decent man dead, and the Courthouse irregularities may be the link.

This is a police procedural set in contemporary Venice, and it follows the Commissario as he works through appearances that do not hold up. The pace is steady and investigative, with a domestic thread running beside the murder case.