Hot on the trail of clues in Europe

And those are just the routine crimes. Two other cases — one unofficial and one official — compete for his attention. As a favor to his colleague Ispettore Vianello, Brunetti is looking into sketchy fortunetellers who might be the recipients of large sums of cash that Vianello’s aunt has withdrawn from her bank account. The other case involves a pattern brought to his attention by an honorable bureaucrat who has noticed trial postponements issued by a Judge Cotellini. In each case, justification for the delay is missing paperwork, normally provided by the otherwise scrupulously efficient Araldo Fontana. Is it a coincidence, Brunetti wonders, that Araldo lives in a comfortable apartment that belies his modest means?

This is a leisurely tale with no gun battles or car chases, just solid police procedure, the sifting of clues, and belatedly, a murder. The hero is a complex, cynical, and at times melancholy family man, trying to do his job and often stymied by government bureaucracy and blustering superiors.

Leon creates such a rich sense of place that reading often feels like a slow vaporetto ride through the swelteringly humid canals of Venice, past splendid bridges and palazzi with time out for tramezzini and rich Italian coffee.

Then, continue south to the backwater of Bari, Italy, the setting for Gianico Carofiglio’s “The Past is a Foreign Country.” There, a young and all too impressionable Giorgio Cipriani, a “model student” of law, takes up with fellow student, Francesco Carducci. The charming and far more worldly Francesco is a sort of magician whose specialty is cheating at cards.

“You can’t cheat alone . . .,” Francesco explains to Giorgio. “The assistant is just as important as the magician. One fiddles the cards, the other cashes in and everyone’s happy.’’