[Leon's] portrait of Venice and modern Italy is, as always, captivating...The lively conversations between...characters, displaying Leon's sly humour, are a delight.

With characteristic skill, Leon draws together multiple threads and a well-rounded cast ... With the steady, unsentimental style that has become her signature, Donna Leon keeps us hesitating until the last corner is turned.

Leon's clear-eyed descriptions of Venice still make you long to return to the calles and campos of the floating city.

More elegant, understated crime fighting from the mistress of La Serinissima...A welcome return to the comfortable characters and locations that her fans have come to love.

[Leon] is a master at weaselling her way into the venal byways of human selfishness and laying them bare. ... There's a quietness to the crimes here that is more powerful than outlandish violence, and which points to the philosophical bedrock from which Leon so effectively works.

We could recognise her characters as easily as our colleagues if we saw them on the bus . . . an absorbing, portentfull depiction of Italian society, where superstition and old taboos still exert a powerful grip. Brunetti is in typically quizzical form. Shrewd yet appealingly emotional, he acts as a seductive guide to a country, and a city, depicted as slowly sinking under the weight of legal sleight-of-hand and pernicious networks of influence among the great and the good

A welcome addition to a hugely popular series with an unparalleled feel for the glorious city of Venice

Wonderful