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1990s – Death has come to a convent in Venice…
1990s – Death has come to a convent in Venice…
Note – Quietly in Their Sleep/Death of Faith are two different titles for this novel and both very apt titles indeed for the troubling dream like scenarios within…
Five patients at a local convent have unexpectedly died and Brunetti comes to the aid of a young nursing sister who is upset and about to leave her position.
Is she creating a smoke screen to justify abandoning her vocation for some reason. Brunetti doesn’t find anything amiss. But perhaps she has stumbled onto something very real and very sinister? Something that puts her life in imminent danger….
A novel which contains lines from ‘Così fan tutte’ as an epigraph which read ‘It’s always better, in this world/ To be a little suspicious’ could not be more apt.
With five deaths unaccounted for, Brunetti is unconcerned at first but then soon realises that they might have been coerced into leaving money to the home and then were quietly ‘disposed of’ later.
The catholic church is a theme here which runs through the investigation and gives us yet another view of Leon’s Venice. Many allegations are made about the group and the likely cause of death of the victims.
The way of life of these nuns is explored and their reasons for not wanting to talk to the police. The decline of faith in Italy is a major topic in Venice it would seem and in such a religious country as Italy this could prove fatal.
The topic of the church and the location of the nursing home is also very personal to Brunetti as his mother herself is in a nursing home and he knows of someone who has been sexually exploited by a priest. The Catholic Church certainly takes on a shadowy role here –
And then there are the other organisation which lurk in the shadows – Opus Dei who have a power and influence that reaches like tentacles over the city and grasping, chocking everything in their path. And when Brunetti tries to find out more about them and similar societies he finds pages have been removed with a razor blade. The librarian tells him
Web: donnaleon.net
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