The second novel to feature Guido Brunetti, Donna Leon's much-loved Commissario of the Venice Police.

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 - and Brunetti becomes convinced that somebody, somewhere, is taking great pains to provide a ready-made solution to the crime.