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Friends in High Places
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Plot Summary of Friends in High Places
"A young bureaucrat visits Guido Brunetti at home, ostensibly to discuss housing standards to his apartment; Brunetti senses that the young man actually is trying to tell
him something else. A few days later, the man's body is found dead, having fallen off a scaffolding as he was inspecting another construction site. The circumstances of death are a bit too pat and Brunetti starts to look into the matter. (He is a commissario with the Venice police.) His investigations lead him into two highly dangerous areas: drug trafficking and loan sharking. The networking of both these leads Brunetti into stonewalls and for once this honorable, incorruptable police chief has to look to his own “friends in high places” to try to get to the solution of this, one of his toughest cases. Leon is quite
adept at addressing social issues, not only of Venice and Italy, but of modern society as
well, and she does a great job.
"

Bill Hobbs, Resident Scholar

Review Analysis of Friends in High Places
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of story - very upbeat
How difficult to spot villain? - Very difficult--no foreshadowing/clues
Time/era of story: - 1980's-1999
What % of story relates directly to the mystery, not the subplot? - 90%
Kid or adult book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Crime Thriller Yes
Murder Mystery (killer unknown) Yes

Main Character
Gender - Male
Profession/status: - government investigator
Age: - 40's-50's
How much violence does he/she use? - none
How sensitive is this character? - sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - average physique

Main Adversary
Identity: - an organization
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - a moderate amount
Motive of antagonist - money/treasure
The antagonists are: - big business leader(s)

Setting
Europe Yes
European country: - Italy

Style
Part of a series? Yes
Person - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - generic/vague references to death/punishment
How many deaths? - 2
Amount of dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
Most similar books to Friends in High Places
Original Sin by P.D. James
Shadow Dance by Julie Garwood
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The Chocolate Chip Murder Mystery by Joanne Fluke


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Donna Leon Resident Scholar Profiles

TOP SCHOLAR:
  
David Loftus  

SCHOLARS:
Marlee A.  Mildred Diamant  dena farquharson  Harriet Klausner  Stephen Coombs  


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