The commissioner kept looking at him with an expression that combined contempt & commiseration, apparently discerning unmistakable signs of senile dementia in the inspector. ?I?m going to speak very frankly, Montalbano. I don?t have a very high opinion of you.? ? Nor I of you, ? the inspector replied bluntly. Montalbano's gruesome discovery of a naked young woman suffocated in her bed immediately sets him on a search for her killer. Among the suspects are her aging husb&, a famous doctor; a shy admirer, now disappeared; an antiques-dealing lover from Bologna; & the victim's friend Anna, whose charms Montalbano cannot help but appreciate. But it is a mysterious, reclusive violinist who holds the key to this murder...