The twenty-second instalment in the internationally acclaimed, bestselling Commissario Brunetti series

'The familiar characters and Venetian location are described with remarkable freshness and, as always, the edifying result is both amusing and thought-provoking.' Sunday Telegraph

'Donna Leon has a wonderful feeling for the social complexities of Venice, where corruption is as old and deep and treacherous as the canals.' Daily Mail

A New York Times Bestseller

When a local man is found dead after overdosing on sleeping pills, Commissario Brunetti's wife can't help but ask him to investigate. The sweet, simple-minded man had worked at their local dry cleaner and Paola loathes the idea that he lived and died without anyone noticing or helping him.

But what seems to be an open-and-shut case of suicide soon proves to be anything but. Brunetti soon discovers that there is nothing on the man: no birth certificate, no passport, no driver's license, no credit cards. Stranger still, the dead man's mother refuses to speak to the police. As secrets unravel, Brunetti begins to suspect that an aristocratic family might be somehow connected to the mystery . . .