Guido Brunetti is baffled by the apparent murder of a seemingly innocuous immigrant man, until a connection to his own youthful past resolves the story of the man's death, and a decades-old disappearance. On a cold November evening, Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague alerts him that a hand has been seen in one of Venice's canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. He is forced to use the city's far richer sources of information - gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim to discover that he had been living in a small house on the grounds of a palazzo owned by a university professor. There Brunetti discovers books revealing the victim's interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers, and the last crop of Italian political terrorists, active in the 1980s. As the investigation expands, the puzzle uses random information about real estate and land use, books and university friendships and then Brunetti stumbles over something that transports him back to his own student days, causing him to reflect on lost ideals and the errors of youth, on Italian politics and history, and on the accidents that sometimes lead to discovery. A story of justice and vengeance and with charming classical allusions which makes you smile. With maps on endpapers, 262pp fairly large print.
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