Uniform Justice

Just finished reading "Uniform Justice" by Donna Leon. It's about a murder investigation in modern Venice, written by an American who has lived in that city for 25 years. The central character is an investigator called Commisario Guido Brunetti (why can't English names sound so good?) I'll not go into the details of the story, but a young man is found dead, in a shower. It looks like a suicide, but it's not. Gradually a web of corruption is uncovered. Of course, the bad guys are the pseudo-fascist military. The story ends with no clear resolution. You can almost hear the author laying down her manuscript with a sigh.

There's only one mention of the church in the book, near the beginning, where it is dismissed, contmptuously, in the same breath as the government. Elsewhere, Brunetti obseves, to himself, that there is more chance of a religious revival than of the eradication of corruption in Rome. In another place, his wife asks him if he can think of any redeeming features in the military. His feeble response is that the military encourages discipline in young people. This, she dismisses as fatuous nonsense. There is no sense of pride in the military, or of the concept of national defense.

Worst of all, there is no real hope for justice. Brunetti is sidelined from his main job in order to massage statistics that will make it look like crime in Venice is declining. He knows full well that this is not the case, but he needs to appease a stereotypical arrogant, ignorant, and politically motivated superior. As Brunetti spends time finding ways to call black white and white black, blind justice lies bleeding.

It's not a bad book. The prose is elegant; the setting is both nostalgic and beautiful. But the characters inhabit a world that is slowly sinking into the Venetian mud. They live lives of quiet despair. Without absolutes, there is no uniform justice. If you want evidence of societal decay, look no further. Venice is a fitting metaphor for a culture without foundations, a civilisation without hope.