Donna Leon isn’t necessarily a household name among mystery readers --- though she should be --- yet one finds her books, featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti, resting here and there on shelves and coffee tables. Booksellers frequently recommend her novels, knowing that if a patron reads one, he or she will be back for more. As is the case with the best literary series, each book builds gently on what has gone before. Still, it is possible to begin anywhere and comfortably pick up the thread of the lives of the primary and secondary characters.

This is especially true of THE TEMPTATION OF FORGIVENESS, the 27th installment of the series, which presents the understated yet razor-sharp investigator with what is possibly his most complex mystery to date, arising from what appears to be a somewhat simple crime that has a particularly tragic result.

"Once again, Leon gives us that rare novel that will satisfy fans of pure mysteries while entrancing those who are interested in personalities, cultures, and the complexities of life and living."

Things begin for Brunetti with an unexpected visit from Professoressa Crosera, a friend and colleague of Brunetti’s wife. The professor is concerned that her teenage son is using drugs that he may be obtaining at the private school he is attending. She believes that if Brunetti and his colleagues simply find who is selling the drugs at school and arrest them, the problem will be solved. Of course, Brunetti knows that the situation is much more complicated than that.

He barely has time to go through the motions of making an attempt to acquiesce Crosera’s request when he is brought into another case. This involves an attack that has left an unknown man comatose. Upon seeing the victim, Brunetti recognizes him immediately. He is Tullio Gasparini, Crosera’s husband. Crosera claims that she has no idea what her husband was doing out late at night in an unfamiliar part of town. Brunetti believes that Gasparini was attempting to ferret out the truth as to whether or not his son was involved in drugs, and, if so, who the supplier was.

What follows is an intriguing account of police procedure in which the reader knows exactly as much as Brunetti --- no more, no less --- and thus reaches the same conclusions and frequent misconceptions. Brunetti is afforded the extremely valuable aid of Claudia Griffoni, his police partner, as well as the unofficial research talents of Signorina Elettra Zorzi, the administrative assistant of Brunetti’s prickly superior officer. Zorzi, notwithstanding her ability to penetrate database firewalls with great aplomb, has some problems of her own, but also provides the key that Brunetti, a shrewd and discerning investigator, requires to unlock the mystery of the attack on Gasparini and reveal a crime that the authorities didn’t even know was being committed.

Leon provides readers with some of her best writing and plotting. For example, she quietly and subtly evokes one of Percy Shelley’s best-known works without specifically mentioning either the author or the poem. However, the references to classics of western literature do not stop there. Sophocles’ Antigone is Brunetti’s bedtime reading at the end of each day that passes during his investigation, and it is that venerable and enduring play, with its examination of behavior and the law, that ultimately influences his resolution of the case and comes at the very end of this quietly fascinating work.

Once again, Leon gives us that rare novel that will satisfy fans of pure mysteries while entrancing those who are interested in personalities, cultures, and the complexities of life and living. Do not miss THE TEMPTATION OF FORGIVENESS or, for that matter, any of the books that have come before.