Fifteen years ago, a teenage girl named Manuela fell into a Venetian lagoon and was saved from drowning by an alcoholic; brain damaged by the experience, she remains in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to learn or mature. At a fundraiser, Manuela's aristocratic grandmother asks family friend Commissario Guido Brunetti to investigate the matter, revealing that the girl had been pushed into the water. In his 25th outing (after 2015's Falling in Love), Brunetti—an intuitive detective when it comes to homicide—is confronted by the ultimate cold case, with no body, no evidence, and a victim who can offer little if any information. Moved by pity and a desire to help the Countess, Brunetti will immerse himself in his most unlikely case yet.

"Leon deftly builds her plot against the struggles of contemporary Venetians…. Fans new and old should appreciate this escape into Brunetti's elegant, sophisticated, yet troubled Venice."—Publishers Weekly