All of the Commisarrio Ricciardi books are wonderful but this one was my favorite. Giovanni's main characters are deep thinking, knowable, three dimensional and, in this book, struggling with moral dilemmas. In addition, he provides us with the backdrop of Christmas and the Nativity scenes (presippi) that are such an important part of Italian Christmas Culture.A corrupt, high ranking officer of the Naples port militia and his wife (circa 1931) are brutally murdered and Ricciardi is assigned to solve the case while not revealing anything "uncomfortable" about the Fascist party or its officials. The term "by my hand" refers to the murder, which could have been committed, by the hand of one of the two main suspects, who have every reason to kill the man. A deeper plot is, however, revealed that brings forward Brigadier Maione's back story and the death of his first-born son by the hand of a young man whose older brother confessed to the crime and who later died in prison after confessing the true story to a guard posing as a priest. Maione is faced with his own desire for revenge by killing the young man who killed his son but is morally struggling with the fact that the man is living a good, crime-free life and has a wife and two small children. Mainone's struggle is so eloquently and poignantly told that my heart ached for the man. His revelation of the entire story to his wife, Lucia, elicited some of the most heart-wrenching dialogue from her that I have read in a long time: "It's Christmastime, Rafe. Luca's not coming home for Christmas . . . He'll never come home again. And after a whole lifetime, you want to tell him now, now that he's in the world of almighty truth, that you're willing to commit this horrible crime, to take a father away from his wife and his two innocent children? Whether they're our children or someone else's, they're still children." Beautiful writing and excellent translation.The book is wonderful but readers who have read the earlier books in the series will probably enjoy it more than those who have not. I look forward to the next book in the series and am so grateful to have found this gifted writer.