A refiner's fire

commissario guido brunetti returns with a gripping and powerful case about the murkiness of power and a test of loyalties when two teenage gangs are arrested after clashing violently in one of venice's campi, the son of a local hero is implicated. but when commissario guido brunetti is asked by a wealthy foreigner to vet this man, monforte, for a job, he discovers that monforte might not be such a hero after all. this seeming contradiction, and a brutal attack on one of brunetti's colleagues by a possible gang member, concentrate brunetti's attentions. soon, he discovers the sordid hypocrisy surrounding monforte's past, culminating in a fiery meeting of two gangs and a final opportunity for redemption. a refiner's fire is donna leon at her very best: an elegant, sophisticated storyteller whose indelible characters become richer with each book, and who constantly interrogates the ambiguity between moral and legal justice.