Uniform Justice: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery

Rating:
Summary: A good detective story, lacking perspective
Review: This is the first book by Donna Leon I ever read. I feel involved with the subject for a few reasons: I am Italian, I have lived in Venice and, moreover, I am an alumnus of Collegio Navale Francesco Morosini, which is grossly portraied in the book as the San Martino Academy.

I enjoyed the literary skill of Donna Leon, but this is all.
I read that, although she has chosen to live in Italy, she shuns publicity and refuses to have her books published in the country. No wonder: she obviously settles for what she has achieved. She has concocted a successful formula for making money by providing international public with an exotic, yet realistic setting for her police stories, stuffed with wholesale and one-sided criticism leveled at the Italian society. Although she lives in Italy, which certainly shows through from her topographic accuracy, she appears to be a total alien to the country. Her book is also overflowing with hostility against anything military and displays an understanding of the environment next to nil and charged with prejudice. One of the features of my school was that, in spite of being tough and selective, it contained a cross section of the Italian society, not just the top of the establishment. Furthermore, whoever knows the Italian Navy, who runs the school, will agree that it can hardly be accused of social preferences.