Donna Leon takes readers back to Venice, with beloved detective Guido Brunetti as guide--in his 32nd mystery.
As the book opens, readers will relish discovering how Brunetti organizes his books, and which ones he's culling on a Saturday evening. He's interrupted by a phone call from Ispettore Vianello, who says a fellow officer has been arrested at a gay pride parade for "resisting arrest." Then, the body of an undocumented immigrant from Sri Lanka--with whom Brunetti had a brief exchange the day before--turns up in a canal. Brunetti, Vianello, Commissario Griffoni and Signorina Elettra go in search of answers. The taut plot builds as the team pieces together seemingly disparate clues: the victim's interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers and a group of 1980s Italian leftist political terrorists. The team's investigation leads them to details of real estate and land use, and Brunetti to clues from his past as a university student.