Suffer the Little Children

She was not beautiful, but she had a pleasant face, the sort that would wear well through life, becoming more attractive as she grew older.

You really love to gossip, don't you?” he asked, wishing she had brought him a glass of wine. “Yes, I suppose I do,” she answered, sounding surprised at the realization. “You think that's why I love reading novels so much?

He went back to the kitchen counter and opened the wine. He sniffed at the cork after he pulled it out, though he never quite knew what he was meant to smell there. It smelled like a cork from a wine bottle: most of them did.

Brunetti and Paola repaired to the living room, each with a small glass of grappa, just what Brunetti’s Uncle Ludovico had always prescribed to counteract the effects of a heavy meal.

Though he would be among the last to deny that deceit and double-dealing played their part in the normal business of the Questura, he knew that simple incompetence was far more common.

Over the years, he had come to believe that he could have only a second-class opinion about abortion and that his gender deprived him of a vote on the subject. This in no way affected his thoughts or his visceral feelings, but the right to a decision belonged to women on this one.

In another culture, Giuliano Marcolini might have been described as fat: Italians, however, graced with a language from which euphemism springs with endless sympathy, would describe him as 'robusto'.

Crime films always advised impostors ro select a name close enough to their own to allow them to respond to it automatically.

We’ve had the bottle since Christmas. With any luck we’ll get another one this year, so I see no reason we shouldn’t drink it.’ ‘Do you think there’s grappa in heaven?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Since there’s no heaven, no, there’s no grappa in heaven,’ she answered, then added, ‘which is even more reason to drink it while we can.’ ‘I’m helpless in the face of your logic,’ Brunetti said, emptied his glass, and handed it to her. ‘I’ll be back in a moment.’ ‘Good,’ Brunetti said and closed his eyes again.