Death and Judgement

Praise for Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti Mysteries

"In this stunning novel, the fourteenth to feature the dogged, intuitive Venetian police detective Guido Brunetti, Leon combines an engrossing, complex plot with an indictment of the corruption endemic to Italian society. . . . Many of Leon's favorite characters appear.... They balance this dark, cynical tale of widespread secrecy, violence and corruption."

—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

"Commissario Guido Brunetti's fourteenth case may be his best yet—not that he'd see it that way himself. . . . Leon's most adroit balance of teasing mystery, Brunetti's droll battles with his coworkers and higher-ups, and intimations of something far deeper and darker behind the curtain."

—Kirku
s Reviews
(starred review)

"The appeal of Guido Brunetti, the hero of Donna Leon's long-running Venetian crime series, comes not from his shrewdness, though he is plenty shrewd, nor from his quick wit. It comes, instead, from his role as an everyman
...
Not so different from our own days at the office or nights around the dinner table. Crime fiction for those willing to grapple with, rather than escape, the uncertainties of daily life."

—Bill Ott,
Booklist
(starred review)

"The evocative Venetian setting and the warmth and humanity of the Brunetti family add considerable pleasure to this nu-anced, intelligent mystery; another winner from the Venice-based Leon. Highly recommended."

—Michele Laber,
Library Journal
(starred review)

"Another of her fabulous Italian m
ysteries . . . She has her fin
ger on the pulse." —
Bookseller

"Gives the reader a feel for life in Venice.... The story is filled
with the average citizen's cynicism, knowledge of corruption,
and deep distrust and fear of
government and police. Charac
ters are brilliantly portrayed. Even bit players become real and
individual and Brunetti and his family are multifaceted and
layered." —Sally Fellows,
Mystery News

"In her classy, literate, atmospheric Commissario Guido
Brunetti series, Donna Leon takes readers
...
to a Venice that
tourists rarely see." —
BookPage

"Brunetti
...
is the most humane sleuth since Georges
Simenon's Inspector Maigret.
...
He is a decent man [who
achieves] a quiet heroism." —
Philadelphia Inquirer

"If you're heading to Venice, take along a few of [Leon's] books to use for both entertainment and travel directions."

—Tlte Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"A beautifully cadenced mystery
...
no one is more graceful
and accomplished than Leon." —
Th
e Washington Post

"Smuggling, sexual betrayal, high-class fakery and, of course, Mafia money make for a rich brew. . . . Exacdy the right cop for the right city. Long may he walk, or wade, through it"

—Sarah Dunant, author of
Th
e Birth of Venus

"Leon's books shimmer in the grace of their setting and are warmed by the charm of their characters."

—Th
e New York Times Book Review

"Superb
...
An outstanding book, deserving of the widest audience possible, a chance for American readers to again experience a master practitioner's art."

—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

"Richly atmospheric, Leon introduces you to the Venice insid-
ers know." —Ellen Hale,
USA Today

"A new Donna Leon book about.
..
Brunetti is ready for our immediate pleasure. 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 seem to lurk just below the surface."

—Dick Adler,
Chicago Tribune

"Uniform Justice
is a neat balancing
act. Its silken prose and con
siderable charm almost conceal its underlying anger; it is an
unlovely story set in the loveliest of cities Donna Leon is in-
deed sophisticated." —Patrick Anderson,
Th
e Washington Post

"There's atmosphere aplenty in
Uniform Ju
stice.
...
Brunetti is a compelling character, a good man trying to stay on the honest path in a devious and twisted world." —
Th
e Baltimore Sun

"Venice provides a beautifully rendered backdrop for this oper-
atic story of fathers and sons, and Leon's writing trembles with
true feeling." —
Th
e Star-Tribune
(Minneapolis)

"One of the best international crime writers is Donna Leon, and her Commissario Guido Brunetti tales set in Venice are at the apex of continental thrillers. . . . The author has written a pitch-perfect tale where all the characters are three-dimensional, breathing entities, and the lives they live, while by turns sweet and horrific, are always believable. Let Leon be your travel agent and tour guide to Venice. It's an unforgettable trip."

—Rocky Mountain News

"Events are powered by Leon's compelling portraits."

—Th
e Oregonian
(Portland)

"The plot is silky and complex, and the main appeal is the pro-
tagonist, Brunetti." —
Th
e
Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Leon, a wonderfully literate writer, sets forth her plot clearly
and succinctly.
...
The ending of
Uniform Justice
is not a neat
wrap-up of the case with justice prevailing. It is rather the end-
ing that one would expect in real
life. Leon says that 'the mur
der mystery is a craft, not an art,' but I say that murder mystery
in her hands is an art." —
The
Roanoke Times

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Donna Leon, who was born in New Jersey, has lived in Venice for many years and previously lived in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and China, where she worked as a teacher. Her other mysteries featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti include
A Noble Radiance, Uniform Justice, Acqua Alto,.Death in a Strange Country, Blood
from a Stone,
and
Dressed for Death,
all available from Penguin.

DONNA
LEON

DEATH AND JUDGMENT

A PENGUIN
‘
GROVE PRESS BOOK

penguin books

Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. U.S.A
. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Egli
nton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario. C
anada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pe
non Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Boob Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Penguin Ireland. 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2. Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (AustraSa), 250 Camberwdl Road, CambcrweU, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group P
ty Ltd) Penguin Book
India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre. Panchsheel Park. New Delhi - 110 01
7. India Penguin Group (NZ), Airborne and Rose
dale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Boob (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Book
Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL. England

First published in the United
Sum
of America by HarperColl
ins Publishers 1995 Reprinted by arrangemen
t with Grove
’
Atlantic. Inc. Publi
shed in Penguin Boob 2006

13579
8642

Copyright
Donna Leon. 1995 AO rights reserved

ISBN 0 14 30.3582 7 CIPdata available

publisher's note

This is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents e
ither arc the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental

Printed in the United States of America

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent m any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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Questo e il fin di chi fa mal!

E de' perfidi la morte

alia vita e sempre ugual.

This is the end of evildoers.

The death of th
e perfidious

Is always th
e same as their lives.

Don Giovanni
Mozart
’
DaPonte

1

On the last Tuesday in September, snow fell for
the
first time in the mountains separating northern Italy from Austria, more than a month before it could ordinarily be expected. The storm arrived suddenly, carried by fat clouds that swept in from nowhere and with no warning. Within a half-hour the roads of the pass above Tarvisio were slick and deadly. No rain had fallen for a month, and so the first snow lay upon roads already covered with a glistening layer of oil and grease.

The combination proved deadly to a sixteen-wheeled truck bearing Romanian licence plates and carrying a cargo manifest for 90 cubic metres of pine boards. Just north of Tarvisio, on a curve that led down to the entrance to
the
autostrada and thus into
the
warmer, safer roads of Italy, the driver braked too hard on a curve and lost control of the immense vehicle, which plunged off the road moving at 50 kilometres an hour. The wheels gouged out huge trenches in the not yet frozen earth, while the body of
the
truck cannoned off trees, snapping them and hurling them about in a long swath that led to the bottom of
the
gully, where
the
truck finally smacked into
the
rock
face of a mountain, smashing open and scattering its cargo in a wide arc.

The first men on the scene, drivers of other heavy transport trucks who stopped without thinking to help one of their own, went first to the cabin of the truck, but there was no hope for the driver, who hung in his seat-belt, half suspended from the cabin, one side of his head battered in by the branch that had ripped off the driver's door as the truck careered down the slope. The driver of a load of pigs being brought down to Italy for slaughter climbed over what remained of the hood of the truck, peering through the shattered windscreen to see if there was another driver. The other seat was empty, and so the searchers who had by then gathered began to look for the other driver, thrown free of the truck.

Four drivers of trucks of varying sizes began to stumble down the hill, leaving a fifth up on the road to set out warning flares and use his radio to summon the
polizia strada
le.
Snow still fell heavily, so it was some time before one of
them
spotted the twisted body
that
could be seen a third of the way down the slope. Two of them ran towards it, they too hoping that at least one of the drivers had survived the accident.

Slipping, occasionally falling to their knees in their haste, the men struggled in the snow the truck had crashed through so effortlessly. The first man knelt beside the motionless form and began to brush at the thin layer of white that covered the supine figure, hoping to find him still breathing. But then his fingers caught in
the
long hair, and when he brushed the snow away from
the
face, he exposed the unmistakably delicate bones of a woman.

He heard another driver cry out from below him. Turning in the still-falling snow, he looked back and saw the other man kneeling over something that lay a few metres to the left of the scar torn by the truck as it plunged down
the
hill.

'What is it?' he called, placing his fingers softly against her neck to feel for life in the oddly positioned figure.

'It's a woman,’
the second one cried. And then, just as he felt the absolute stillness of the throat of the form below him, the other called up to him, 'She's dead.'

Later, the first driver to explore behind the truck said that he thought, when he first saw
them
, that the truck must have been carrying a cargo of mannequins: you know, those plastic women they dress up and put in the windows of shops. There they were, at least a half-dozen of
them
, lying scattered over the snow behind
the
shattered rear doors of
the
truck. One even seemed to have got caught in the lumber that had been tossed about inside
the
truck and lay
there
, half hanging from the back platform, legs pinned down by stacks of boards so securely wrapped that the impact of
the
truck against the mountain had not been sufficient to break them open. But why would mannequins be dressed in overcoats, he remembered wondering. And why that red in the snow all around them?