Uniform Justice (Commissario Brunetti, #12)

by Donna Leon

In uomini, in soldati sperare fedeltà? You expect fidelity in men, in soldiers? Così fan tutte – Mozart

Brunetti realized that not much he had seen could persuade him that the military, either Italian or foreign, was much different from the Mafia: dominated by men and unfriendly to women; incapable of honour or even simple honesty beyond its own ranks; dedicated to the acquisition of power; contemptuous of civil society; violent and cowardly at the same time.

into the sort of saccharine nonsense that accompanies the retelling of the stories of the saints and martyrs.

Anna Comnena’s admonition that, ‘Whenever one assumes the role of historian, friendship and enmities have to be forgotten’,

‘Tanto fumo, poco arrosto.’

the Irish often said, in moments when consolation was necessary, ‘I’m sorry for your trouble’,

He had long held the view that it was no accident that the Mafia had grown in the home of the Vatican, for both demanded the same fidelity from their followers and both punished betrayal with death, either earthly or eternal.