Trace Elements (Commissario Guido Brunetti, #29)

by Donna Leon

Besides, it was unlikely that the city would hire a Neapolitan, a far greater handicap than being a woman.

Brunetti finally accepted the appalling thought: a dying woman put out on the street because she couldn’t pay for the hospital. Where were they, for God’s sake, America?

The habit of discretion was welded into him, like the watertight compartments of a ship. Partitions had to exist, else things might flow from one section to another and contaminate or destroy.

Brunetti had always considered himself deprived of deep understanding of people, of what they wanted or what they did, and here was proof: he understood nothing.

A book lay on the table in front of the sofa, tellingly closed and not left face-down as he usually left the book he was reading.

based almost entirely upon gossip and insinuation, those Venetian twins of truth.

What was it St Augustine had said, ‘Lord, make me pure, but not yet’?