'The body floated face down in the murky water of the canal. Gently the ebbing tide tugged it along towards the open waters of the laguna that spread out beyond the end of the canal-'

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.