Quietly in Their Sleep

Quietly in Their Sleep (1997) Donna Leon

The 6th Commissario Brunetti mystery finds Brunetti in charge while Patta is on vacation. It also finds a young woman in his office with claims of patients at a nursing home being murdered for the legacy they left to the church and home.

‘No, Commissario, it’s not your mother. Nothing will happen to her.’ She paused then, embarrassed at how that sounded and at the grim truth contained in her words: the only thing that could ever again happen to Brunetti’s mother was death.

Except that Suor’Immacolata is no longer around to calm Brunetti’s mother.

Suor’Eleanora, a woman whom the course of years had turned sour and to whom the vows meant poverty of spirit, chastity of humour, and obedience only to some rigorous concept of duty. The fact that his mother could be, even if for an instant, in the care of this woman enraged him as a man; the fact that the casa di cura was considered to be one of the best available shamed him as a citizen.

Sadly, things seem to be the same around the world.

We also truly begin to learn of Signorina Elettra’s skills with the computer–skills that will become more and more useful over the course of the series.

‘If they were recorded here, can you get the information?’
‘Of course.’
‘How?’
She looked down at her skirt and brushed away an invisible speck. ‘I’m afraid it’s illegal.’
‘What’s illegal?’
‘The way I get the information.’
‘Which is …?’
‘I’m not sure you can understand, Commissario, or that I could explain it to you adequately, but there are ways of discovering the codes which give access to almost all information. The more public the information is – a city hall, public records – the easier it is to discover the code. And once a person has that, it’s as if … well, it’s as if they’d gone home and left the door to the office open and the lights on.’
‘Is this true of all government agencies?’ he asked uneasily.
‘I think you’d prefer not to know the answer,’ she said, her smile gone.
‘How easy is it to get this information?’ he asked.
‘I’d say it’s in direct proportion to the skill of the person looking for it.’
‘And how skilled are you, Signorina?’ The question summoned back a smile, a very small one.
‘I think that’s a question I’d prefer not to answer, Commissario.’

And we also see Vianello starting to come into his own in this story.

‘Well?’ Brunetti asked as he took the list from his pocket again. He checked the next address and set off toward it; Vianello fell into step beside him.
‘Is that what’s known as an important personage in the city?’ was Vianello’s attempt at an answer.
‘I think so.’
‘Poor Venice, then.’

Rating: 8/10

Published by Grove Press

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