Friends in High Places - Tapa dura

" 'Crime writing of the highest order' - Guardian. 'Leon's best so far - I don't think I could really understand a crime fan who didn't love Donna Leon' - Scotland on Sunday. 'All Donna Leon's novels are excellent in their evocation of place, while in Brunetti she has created a character who becomes more real in each book - However, Friends in High Places is by far the best and marks a quantum leap forward' - Evening Standard"

When Cornmissario Brunetti is visited by a young bureaucrat investigating the lack of official approval for the building of his apartment years before, his first reaction, like any other Venetian, is to think of whom he knows who might bring pressure to bear on the relevant local government department. But when the bureaucrat rings Brunetti at work, clearly scared and is then found dead after a fall from scaffolding, something is clearly going on that has implications rather greater than the fate of Guldo's own apartment...