Suffer the Little Children

Suffer the Little Children (2007) Donna Leon

Weirdly, I had no memory of reading this, and in fact thought I had not read it before.

I know why this is so, but it is still a strange feeling, to re-read a book and have no memory of the previous reading.

The book opens with a father putting his young son to bed–and then the Carabinieri raid that soon follows.

Be aware–this book looks at the selling of babies. Not the worst kind of selling you can think of, but the selling of babies to couples who can’t have them.

‘I see. So in each case, you …’ Brunetti tried to think what word he was supposed to use here Repossessed? Confiscated? Stole? – ‘got the baby and handed it over to social services.’

That’s when a man becomes a father, Brunetti knew, or at least he remembered that it was during that first year and a half that his own children had been soldered into his heart. Had either of them been taken from him, for any reason, after that time, he would have gone through life with some essential part of himself irreparably damaged. Before that conviction could fully take shape in his mind, Brunetti realized that, had either child been taken from him at any time after he first saw them, his suffering would have been no different than if he had had them for eighteen months, or eighteen years.

Let me be honest–I’ve read this series and the Inspector Montalbano series, and I’m still not sure I fully understand the difference between the police and the carabinieri.

As I’ve found re-reading this series, I keep coming upon bits that strike me as familiar or as part of my life.

Vianello said, ‘You know, I always used to think it was all right to buy this, so long as I didn’t read it. As though buying it was a venial sin and reading it a mortal.’ He looked at Brunetti, then again at the headlines. ‘But now I think I might have got it the wrong way round and it’s a mortal sin to buy because it encourages them to keep on printing it. And reading it’s only a venial sin because it really doesn’t make any impression on you.’ Vianello raised his glass and drank the rest of his wine.

I’ve felt that way for years about the local paper.
Rating: 8/10

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press

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