Suffer the Little Children

Suffer the Little Children (2007) Donna Leon

Brunetti is called to the hospital for an assault case, where it turns out that a citizen of Venice has been injured, only the assault isn’t what he was expecting, and draws Brunetti into a case of illegal adoptions.

I’d been saving Suffer the Little Children for months, since it’s the last Brunetti book out in paperback.

I’m sorry I waited.

I’ve been rather blue recently, so I thought this would be the perfect time to read a Commissario Brunetti book.

It wasn’t.

First of all, the quality of writing was fine. There were passages I loved, such as the following:

Because Paola had agreed to help him by asking around about (), Brunetti steeled himself and went down to the computer in the officers’ room, where he managed to surprise his colleagues by the ease with which he connected to the Internet and then typed in the letters for ‘()’, having to go back and correct only two typing errors.

Brunetti remains himself, dedicated to Paola and proud of his children, and sticking with his job, even if he finds it maddening at times.

And that’s where things fell apart for me.

mild SPOILERS (rot13)

Nygubhtu jr yrnea jung unccraf, abguvat vf erfbyirq va n fngvfsnpgbel znaare. Nyy xvaqf bs onq guvatf unccra–znal unccra gb vaabprag crbcyr–naq ab bar vf cebfrphgrq sbe nalguvat. Guvf vfa’g hahfhny sbe n Oeharggv obbx, ohg gur fcrpvsvpf bs gur vaibyirzrag va puvyqera jub jrer pbzcyrgryl vaabprag, naq gur ubeevoyr cuneznpvfg raqrq gur fgbel ba n pbzcyrgryl qrcerffvat abgr.

Abg jung bar arrqf jura nyernql fhssrevat sebz gur oyhrf.

END SPOLIERS

It was an OK book, but it was definitely not at all what I wanted to read. If I’d read it at another time, I would have liked it more.

If you have not read a Brunetti book, you should be able to start here without much difficulty. But I’m not sure this is a good place to start.
Rating: 6/10

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