A girl's body is found floating in one of Venice's canals. But no one has reported a missing child or the theft of the gold jewellery that she carries. So Commissario Brunetti is drawn into a search not only for the cause of her death but also her identity, her family, and for the secrets that people will keep in order to protect their children.
When Commissario Guido Brunetti is visited by a young bureaucrat investigating the lack of official approval for the building of his apartment years earlier, his first reaction, like any other Venetian, is to think of whom he knows who ...