
                                               Early one morning Guido Brunetti Commissario of the Venice Police confronts a grisly sight when the body of a young man is fished out of a fetid Venetian canal All the clues point to a violent mugging but for Brunetti robbery seems altogether too convenient a motive Then something very incriminating is discovered in the dead man's flat
- something which points to the existence of a high-level cabal
- & Brunetti becomes convinced that somebody somewhere is taking great pains to provide a ready-made solution to the crime