As Venice is gripped by a heatwave, Commissari Brunetti looks forward to a couple of weeks in the hills and sleeping under an eiderdown. In the heat, nothing much is happening. His colleague Ispettore Vianello is concerned about his aunt and her involvement with a shonky astrologer, and Brunetti offers some help. His friend Brusca from the council brings him a file that suggests something odd is going on with the cases coming before magistrate Cotelilini – does it have something to do with the clerk of courts, Fortuna?

The heat makes it hard for Brunetti to focus on anything much, except to internally rail against the private and public corruption endemic in contemporary Italy. The prospect of the cool hills beckons, but as the train approaches he receives the call that Fortuna has been found brutally murdered and the heat drags him back again. Brunetti peels back Italy’s seedy layers in classic Leon tradition.