Willful Behavior

Willful Behavior (2002) Donna Leon

One of Paola’s students asks her if Brunetti can answer a legal question for her. Brunetti says he can’t give her a clear answer without knowing more about her question, and the answers she does give him only lead to more questions.

It also sidles up to a subject about which I know very little: the part Italy played in WWII.

‘Just like the French, we couldn’t forget what happened during the wars fast enough… (T)o give (the Germans) credit, they looked at what they did.

‘Did they have a choice?’ Brunetti asked.

‘With Communists in charge of half the country, the Cold War begin, and the Americans terrified which way they’d go. of course they had a choice. The Allies, once the Nuremberg Trials are over, would never have pushed the Germans’ noses in it. But they chose to examine the war years, at least to a certain degree. We never did, and so there is no history of those years, at least none that’s reliable.’

It’s another good story, that I enjoyed.
Rating: 7/10

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