The Girl Of His Dreams, by Donna Leon

This is the 17th in the Commissario Guido Brunetti series of detective novels, set in Venice, which began in 1992. From my observations, the same qualities are cited by those such as I, who admire and enjoy these works, and by those who either actively dislike them or can't see what the fuss is about. Those characteristics include the warmth of Brunetti's family life (he is not your clichéd solitary private eye), with its shared, home-cooked meals; the author's social conscience, illustrated in Brunetti's university-lecturer wife's strident outbursts against corruption; in Brunetti's more nuanced musings about the compromises that morality in the real world necessitates; and a loving portrayal of the city of Venice, in all its ineffable beauties and crippling problems.

In The Girl of His Dreams, Donna Leon is writing at her fluent best. The themes – in this instance, anti-clericism, Romany crime, political correctness, and the special vulnerability of children – are well integrated into the plot, and their treatment is subtle and allusive. The usual characters, from Brunetti's extended family to those at the questura (central police station), are comfortably true to their pre-established selves and yet alive on the page. And the signposted town map allows aficionados of Venice to follow the action, calle by calle.

The tale opens with a funeral on the cemetery island of San Michele, which introduces a priest who will later come to Brunetti with an accusation of criminality against another cleric. While Brunetti is looking into this matter, notice comes that a body has been spotted in the Grand Canal. Soon Brunetti and his colleague Ispettore Vianello find themselves fishing out of the water the body of a 10-year-old girl, who turns out to be a Romany child from the mainland.

The investigations preoccupy Brunetti throughout the novel. They take him to diverse locations in the Venetian districts, including a private religious gathering in Santa Croce, a dusty, impoverished Dominican monastery in Castello, a comfortable, middle-class home in San Marco, a palazzo in Dorsoduro overlooking the Grand Canal; and back and forth from his own home in San Polo. Although the two tales proceed on separate tracks, they are beautifully integrated in the final scene of the book. The fundamental humanity that infuses the Brunetti mysteries transcends the cruelty and criminality that have led up to this moment of quiet, if temporary, resolution.

Heinemann, £16.99. Order for £15.29 (free p&p) on 0870 079 8897