Suffer the Little Children is written by Donna Leon. The title is Book #16 of the Commissario Guido Brunetti series.
Every title in this series seems to be a ‘morality play’ Cases are solved (usually) but there is rarely justice.
I don’t know how he copes. He is a very moralistic man and the constant and commonplace criminality of Venice must drag him down to the depths of his understanding.
The plot is complicated, suspenseful, sad and set in the glorious city of Venice “seething with small-town vice.”
A highly recommended title and series. **** ( )

Thank goodness this read is over. If this had been an ebook, I would not have finished it. Buuut... I bought a copy of this book at a used bookstore so I had to get my money's worth.

I really expected an exciting story of illegal adoptions with the first chapter luring you in the plot from the hinted kidnapping of a pediatrician who is in the hospital due to life threatening injuries.

And up to a certain point, the first chapter did sort of start with a good dose of action you'd expect from a thriller detective story. The problem is... well... after we see Detective Guido Brunetti ruffles his feathers and tries not to punch to Carabineri special forces for police brutality amid a potentially illegal raid, the story sort of fizzles into tedium.

One of the problems of the plot is the fact pretty much everything pertaining to Dr. Gustavo Pedrolli's arrest is: "not in Guido's Jurisdiction". He is only supposed to investigate an assault that left a man with pretty severe neurological damage due to an inept rookie special force cop named Maravatti. Guido doesn't have access to the kid's possibly forged birth certificate (and the plot conveniently makes him give up because the Venice birth registry office is on strike even though the kid was supposed to be adopted in Verona so this plot hole should have been a non issue anyways). He never interviews the kid's biological mother. No heated meetings with a higher up in Internal Affairs for police brutality in what is supposed to be his jurisdiction. Um... I guess the only bit of real detective work he did within his realms of possibility is discovering some pharmacies hacked into the public healthcare system to program PCP consults for dead people but apparently nobody abused the system to either get drugs or embezzle money. And if either crime did occur, the book sort of ignores them because, well... I dunno either.

Guido's boss Patti never really tells him to drop the assault case, but there really isn't any reason why he continues investigating the child ring because it "is not his jurisdiction." Quite frankly, outside of discovering the medical record hacking fraud, the only real police work he did in the whole book is enter a pharmacy that suffered a nasty break in, let a clerk tamper with the crime scene that is covered with bloodied glass shards in the floor (doesn't anyone watch CSI?), and somehow a mysterious super smart computer guy we never meet manages to salvage 99% of the computer hard drive in time for the rather unexciting finale. The book doesn't give us an exact year where it is supposed to take place, but it mentions flat computer screens now exist, so it has to happen after 2005. Even then, computer hard drives are quite brittle and I would be hard pressed to believe one that was damaged so badly by a clumsy burglar was salvageable. Heck, isn't Venice supposed to be surrounded by canals everywhere? If the crook had just dumped the computer into the water, well, I guess nobody would have found out about the ending, which is a bit of a non issue anyways. Yeah, these plot holes sure were not very well thought out.

Now, after I have finished venting about the story, I have noticed other problems of the book that I wish to address. I have never read previous books from this author. The good news is that it looks like this is an episodic series so reading prior books is pretty much optional. The bad news (for me) is that I do not know if Guido was supposed to have some sort of character development in prior books.

Here are some excerpts that made my eyes roll real hard:

"Brunetti's eye was drawn to a pair of sleek, tanned female thighs which presented themselves to the beholder, proof of the ease which cellulite could be banished in a single week." WTF?

There's more!

"He saw a group of tourists approach and judged them to be Eastern Europeans, even before he gave the decision any conscious thought. He studied them as they walked past him: sallow complexions; blond hair, either natural or assisted in that direction; cheap shoes, one remove from cardboard; plastic jackets that had been dyed and treated in an unsuccessful attempt to make them resemble leather. Brunetti had always felt a regard for these tourists because they looked at things. Probably too poor to buy most of what they saw, they still gazed about them with respect an awe and unbridled delight. With their cheap clothes and their bad haircuts and their packed lunches, who knew what it cost them to come here?"

I know Venice is an expensive touristy city and all, but the book really feels aged when it comes to well, not viewing Eastern European visitors as half starved savages. This particular scene is from Guido's POV. Isn't he supposed to be the good guy?

"He's in La Paz (Bolivia). Ordinarily, the name of the city would have caused Brunetti to joke and ask if her father were there to arrange a deal in cocaine, but the mounting evidence that many, if not most, of the calls made on telefonini were intercepted and recorded dissuaded him from doing so."

Yes, Guido sure thinks every rich tourist visiting a city in Latin America is only there to get drugs when that same person would have zero difficulty getting it in Italy in the first place. But how nice of him to view Latin America in such a way!

"Paola had again observed, months ago, that he should spend a day counting the times he saw tits and ass. And here he found himself contemplating evidence, though, strangely enough, he was comforted by the sight of all that lovely flesh."

CRIIIIINGE!!!!

I won't even delve much into detail the nonsensical scene early in the book where a coffee shop Guido and another detective visit constantly when an African migrant gets all jittery the moment he sees the two cops. Umm... the guy has a fully valid legal work permit. Like... why would he go all psycho if the cops would have zero grounds to deport him in the first place?

That scene made me notice yet another issue I felt with this book: if this book had been written by a rookie author today, it would have had an insanely low chance of getting trad published. Like, outside of the jittery migrant worker that doesn't even say a word in the whole book and an Indian or Pakistani taxi driver that scuttles through the city real fast, pretty much 100% of the characters of the book are fair white characters with the majority having blond hair and green eyes. If you are searching for even the smallest modicum of diversity in supporting characters, this book seems to be stuck in the 1950's. Now, I have never been to Venice, but I would assume 15 years ago you would see a more sizeable migrant community. The weird thing is that what really motivated me to finish this book was to see if I was lucky enough to spot more of these cringey passages. And yes, a minor character which is a spoiler is very ableist. *shudder*

Like, I could accept Guido liked using his right hand reading Playboy in his spare time, but he is neither doing that, his wife spend 90% of her scenes in the book feeding him food and wine without showing any windows of her personality (except that autumn makes her bitchy for no reason whatsoever). Guido was not even supposed to continue researching the baby ring because "it isn't his jurisdiction", so what was the motivator? Oh yes, he is supposed to love kids.

The weird thing is that in the two scenes he interacts with his 2 kids, it's like... they seem like Christmas tree decorations that say something fun they did at school and he isn't even paying attention to them. The kids could be zapped by a laserbeam and chances are Guido wouldn't care. I even assumed he was in a childless marriage the vast majority of the book.

So in a nutshell, I have no idea how in the hell this plot hole ridden book managed to get a trad publication. To add salt into the wound, I swear the final 3 chapters read like a caffeinated first draft that was written 4 hours before the deadline and published without any corrections. This book is quite solid proof that a trad book is definitely not superior to a self published novel. ( )

I have continued with the Donna Leon series and continue to enjoy them. Suffer the Little Children concerns illegal adoption with the usual twists and turns. The ending of this one was particularly well-crafted and different from other books in the series. I think that willingness to change up the plot with each book keeps the series fresh. ( )

Thank goodness this read is over. If this had been an ebook, I would not have finished it. Buuut... I bought a copy of this book at a used bookstore so I had to get my money's worth.

I really expected an exciting story of illegal adoptions with the first chapter luring you in the plot from the hinted kidnapping of a pediatrician who is in the hospital due to life threatening injuries.

And up to a certain point, the first chapter did sort of start with a good dose of action you'd expect from a thriller detective story. The problem is... well... after we see Detective Guido Brunetti ruffles his feathers and tries not to punch to Carabineri special forces for police brutality amid a potentially illegal raid, the story sort of fizzles into tedium.

One of the problems of the plot is the fact pretty much everything pertaining to Dr. Gustavo Pedrolli's arrest is: "not in Guido's Jurisdiction". He is only supposed to investigate an assault that left a man with pretty severe neurological damage due to an inept rookie special force cop named Maravatti. Guido doesn't have access to the kid's possibly forged birth certificate (and the plot conveniently makes him give up because the Venice birth registry office is on strike even though the kid was supposed to be adopted in Verona so this plot hole should have been a non issue anyways). He never interviews the kid's biological mother. No heated meetings with a higher up in Internal Affairs for police brutality in what is supposed to be his jurisdiction. Um... I guess the only bit of real detective work he did within his realms of possibility is discovering some pharmacies hacked into the public healthcare system to program PCP consults for dead people but apparently nobody abused the system to either get drugs or embezzle money. And if either crime did occur, the book sort of ignores them because, well... I dunno either.

Guido's boss Patti never really tells him to drop the assault case, but there really isn't any reason why he continues investigating the child ring because it "is not his jurisdiction." Quite frankly, outside of discovering the medical record hacking fraud, the only real police work he did in the whole book is enter a pharmacy that suffered a nasty break in, let a clerk tamper with the crime scene that is covered with bloodied glass shards in the floor (doesn't anyone watch CSI?), and somehow a mysterious super smart computer guy we never meet manages to salvage 99% of the computer hard drive in time for the rather unexciting finale. The book doesn't give us an exact year where it is supposed to take place, but it mentions flat computer screens now exist, so it has to happen after 2005. Even then, computer hard drives are quite brittle and I would be hard pressed to believe one that was damaged so badly by a clumsy burglar was salvageable. Heck, isn't Venice supposed to be surrounded by canals everywhere? If the crook had just dumped the computer into the water, well, I guess nobody would have found out about the ending, which is a bit of a non issue anyways. Yeah, these plot holes sure were not very well thought out.

Now, after I have finished venting about the story, I have noticed other problems of the book that I wish to address. I have never read previous books from this author. The good news is that it looks like this is an episodic series so reading prior books is pretty much optional. The bad news (for me) is that I do not know if Guido was supposed to have some sort of character development in prior books.

Here are some excerpts that made my eyes roll real hard:

"Brunetti's eye was drawn to a pair of sleek, tanned female thighs which presented themselves to the beholder, proof of the ease which cellulite could be banished in a single week." WTF?

There's more!

"He saw a group of tourists approach and judged them to be Eastern Europeans, even before he gave the decision any conscious thought. He studied them as they walked past him: sallow complexions; blond hair, either natural or assisted in that direction; cheap shoes, one remove from cardboard; plastic jackets that had been dyed and treated in an unsuccessful attempt to make them resemble leather. Brunetti had always felt a regard for these tourists because they looked at things. Probably too poor to buy most of what they saw, they still gazed about them with respect an awe and unbridled delight. With their cheap clothes and their bad haircuts and their packed lunches, who knew what it cost them to come here?"

I know Venice is an expensive touristy city and all, but the book really feels aged when it comes to well, not viewing Eastern European visitors as half starved savages. This particular scene is from Guido's POV. Isn't he supposed to be the good guy?

"He's in La Paz (Bolivia). Ordinarily, the name of the city would have caused Brunetti to joke and ask if her father were there to arrange a deal in cocaine, but the mounting evidence that many, if not most, of the calls made on telefonini were intercepted and recorded dissuaded him from doing so."

Yes, Guido sure thinks every rich tourist visiting a city in Latin America is only there to get drugs when that same person would have zero difficulty getting it in Italy in the first place. But how nice of him to view Latin America in such a way!

"Paola had again observed, months ago, that he should spend a day counting the times he saw tits and ass. And here he found himself contemplating evidence, though, strangely enough, he was comforted by the sight of all that lovely flesh."

CRIIIIINGE!!!!

I won't even delve much into detail the nonsensical scene early in the book where a coffee shop Guido and another detective visit constantly when an African migrant gets all jittery the moment he sees the two cops. Umm... the guy has a fully valid legal work permit. Like... why would he go all psycho if the cops would have zero grounds to deport him in the first place?

That scene made me notice yet another issue I felt with this book: if this book had been written by a rookie author today, it would have had an insanely low chance of getting trad published. Like, outside of the jittery migrant worker that doesn't even say a word in the whole book and an Indian or Pakistani taxi driver that scuttles through the city real fast, pretty much 100% of the characters of the book are fair white characters with the majority having blond hair and green eyes. If you are searching for even the smallest modicum of diversity in supporting characters, this book seems to be stuck in the 1950's. Now, I have never been to Venice, but I would assume 15 years ago you would see a more sizeable migrant community. The weird thing is that what really motivated me to finish this book was to see if I was lucky enough to spot more of these cringey passages. And yes, a minor character which is a spoiler is very ableist. *shudder*

Like, I could accept Guido liked using his right hand reading Playboy in his spare time, but he is neither doing that, his wife spend 90% of her scenes in the book feeding him food and wine without showing any windows of her personality (except that autumn makes her bitchy for no reason whatsoever). Guido was not even supposed to continue researching the baby ring because "it isn't his jurisdiction", so what was the motivator? Oh yes, he is supposed to love kids.

The weird thing is that in the two scenes he interacts with his 2 kids, it's like... they seem like Christmas tree decorations that say something fun they did at school and he isn't even paying attention to them. The kids could be zapped by a laserbeam and chances are Guido wouldn't care. I even assumed he was in a childless marriage the vast majority of the book.

So in a nutshell, I have no idea how in the hell this plot hole ridden book managed to get a trad publication. To add salt into the wound, I swear the final 3 chapters read like a caffeinated first draft that was written 4 hours before the deadline and published without any corrections. This book is quite solid proof that a trad book is definitely not superior to a self published novel. ( )

Tres carabinieri irrumpen en el apartamento de un pediatra, lo atacan y se llevan a su hijo de dieciocho meses. ¿Qué ha motivado un ataque tan violento por parte de las fuerzas del orden? Cuando el comisario Brunetti es convocado al hospital en que ingresa la víctima del cruel asalto, deberá enfrentarse a más preguntas que respuestas.