In a factory wasteland in Mestre, an industrial suburb of Venice, a policeman finds the disfigured corpse of a man in a deliberately flashy women's outfit. It is obvious that this is a murder, and it seems clear that the person killed is a transvestite prostitute. But, while investigating this crime, Venice Police Commissioner Guido Brunetti, already familiar to the reader, understands that everything is far from what it seems at first glance. The backdrop for the intense plot is Venice, depicted with tenderness in all the details of its exotic and essentially cozy life.