I'm sensing a theme here

In the words of Otto: "Disappointed!"

I hied me down to the public library yesterday with a helpful list of authors to distract me from a long flight and after paring away the chaff--to mix a metaphor--I checked out 3 mysteries by Donna Leon. This is the stuff, I thought after a few pages of Acqua Alta; smart and well written with engaging characters. It started off with a lesbian couple, but I'm broad-minded and Donna kept it clean. Refined. I liked the main character Brunetti when he was brought in and the interaction with his teenage daughter was heart-warming and clever. I was well on my way. And then Brunetti walked into the next room to his wife who is upset because of a student at the college where she teaches:

     "He such a dirty-minded little pig," Paulo said vehemently. "Really vicious."
     "What's he done now?"
     "It's not what he does. It's what he says, and the way he says it. Communists, abortion, gays. Any of those subjects just has to come up and he's all over them, like slime, talking about how glorious it is that communism's been defeated in Europe, that abortion is a sin against God..."

"Like slime." Another one bites the dust. And Donna sounded so nice in her interview. [I don't blame you, SiS, you probably haven't even read this one.]