Suffer the Little Children

When Commissario Brunetti is summoned to the hospital bedside of a senior paediatrician whose skull has been fractured, he is confronted with more questions than answers. Three men - a carabinieri captain and two privates from out of town - have burst into the doctor's apartment in the middle of the night, attacked him and taken away his eighteenth-month-old baby. What can have motivated such a violent assault by the forces of the state?

But then Brunetti begins to uncover a story of infertility, desperation, and an underworld in which babies can be bought for cash, at the same time as Inspector Vianello uncovers a money-making scam between pharmacists and doctors in the city. But one of the pharmacists is motivated by more than thoughts of gain - the power of knowledge and delusions of moral rectitude can be as destructive and powerful as the love of money. And the uses of information about one's neighbours can lead to all kinds of corruption and all sorts of pain...Donna Leon's newest audiobook is as subtle and fascinating as ever, set in a beautifully realised Venice, seething with small-town vice.