In the 27th novel in Donna Leon’s bestselling mystery series, a suspicious accident leads Commissario Guido Brunetti to uncover a longstanding scam with disturbing unintended consequences.

When a friend of Brunetti’s wife’s, fearful that her son is using drugs and hopeful that he can somehow intervene, comes to the Questura, Brunetti tries to calm her down. But when the woman’s husband, Tullio Gasparini, is found unconscious and with a serious brain injury at the foot of a bridge after midnights, Brunetti is drawn to pursue a possible connection to the boy’s behaviour. Yet the truth is never straightforward.

Exasperated by the petty bureaucracy, Brunetti is steadied by the embrace of his own family and by his passion for the classics. This predilection leads him to read Sophocles’ Antigone, and, in its light, consider the terrible consequences to which the actions of a tender heart can lead.