A refiner's fire Author Forename:Donna

A refiner's fire Author Forename:DonnaWhen 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, Monforte, for a job, he discovers that Monforte 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

puppet shows

lives with him at the Rectory on the estate

17-year-old Tone Vaterland was killed on her way home from work

a mysterious counter-intelligence unit known only as P-30

Adlam's complex narrative brings to life the lost legacies of early crime fiction and the first women journalists and detectives

the Church and the colleges

And then she sees him - Liam - those green eyes

false bearded and with a broken neck

This is long overdue

Sayers and the Oxford women who stood at the vanguard of equal rights

clammy with fog

which she thinks gives her alma mater a bad name