A Refiner's Fire (Broché)

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, Dario Monforte, for a job, he discovers that he 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.