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 the robbery motive seems altogether too convenient. Then something very incriminating is discovered in the 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..
