THE GIRL OF HIS DREAMS: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery

N.Y.: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2008. 1st American edition, so stated and with complete number line beginning with 1. Fine in fine dust jacket, not price clipped, in protective mylar cover. Venetian map endpapers. When a friend of Commissario Guido Brunetti’s brother, a priest recently returned from years of missionary work in Africa, calls on him with a request, Brunetti suspects the man has hidden motives. An American-style Christian group has begun meeting in private homes in the city, and it’s possible the priest is merely wary of the competition. Nevertheless, Brunetti and his wife, Paola, decide to go undercover. But when a girl’s body is found floating in a canal, Brunetti must put everything aside to investigate But, inconceivably, no one has reported a missing child, nor the theft of the gold jewelry that she carries. So Brunetti is drawn into a search not only for the cause of her death but also for her identity, her family, and for the secrets that people will keep in order to protect their children - be they innocent or guilty. The investigation takes Brunetti from the canals and palazzos of Venice to a Gypsy encampment on the mainland, through quicksands of connections and relationships both known and concealed, as he struggles with both institutional prejudice and entrenched criminality to try to unravel the fate of the dead child.. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Book.