Friends in High Places by Donna Leon

Although Raffi and Chiara are on the set for only a few pages in this book, they connect the theme of the whole story as Brunetti continually connects criminals, victims, and events to them in his thinking.

The first criminal is Vice Questore Patta's son Roberto. He is picked up in a raid on a club with sale weight of Ecstacy. Roberto is only a few years older than Raffi. Patta comes to Brunetti begging his assistance in rescuing his son from the consequences of his crime. From that point there is a recurring theme of young people, drugs, drug dealers and gray areas, such as the club owner, an old friend of Brunetti, who escapes consequences because he has goons prevent patrons from leaving his premises while incapacitated. The police give him a pass because they do not have to go clean up as many fatal auto accidents, parents of the young people prefer having them held overnight to attending to their funerals, and everyone comes away a winner.

From there we move on to the murder of an honest housing inspector - a phenomenon anywhere, but particularly so in Venice where public corruption is a centuries old institution. He is connected to Brunetti because the construction which added their apartment to its building was done without recourse to permits or any such formality - long before the Brunetti's purchased it - and in order to correct the problem, it may have to be destroyed.

When the issue of the apartment arises, all readers familiar with the series immediately assume that the Brunettis will call on Paola's father, Count Falier, who knows everyone and can fix such trivial problems with a mere word over a glass of wine. But Brunetti does not want to be indebted to the Count to that extent and proposes to handle the problem himself - in proper Venetian fashion by calling on his own friends who owe him favors.

The title theme continues as Patta calls on friends of his own to make the rock solid evidence against his son melt away - along with evidence which would have punished those responsible for the death of a gifted young architecture student.

The final level involves a family descended from 14th century nobility to the point that nothing exists of their "nobility," except the name itself and their own self-aggrandizement, which lead to truly horrific consequences.