A combined edition of: March Violets , The Pale Criminal , and, A German Requiem .

Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venice Questura is shocked to hear that his friend Brett Lynch, lover of La Scala diva Flavia Petrelli, has been savagely beaten. Then a man's body is found and a terrible confrontation awaits Brett in the Capra family palazzo.

When the body of a wealthy elderly woman is found murdered in her Venetian flat, it is clear to the police that the prime suspect is her Rumanian maid, who has disappeared. When the woman is approached by the border police as her train is leaving Italy, she makes a run for it and is killed as she crosses the tracks in front of an oncoming train.

Commissario Brunetti's hopes of a refreshing holiday with his family are dashed when a body is found in Marghera so badly beaten that the face is unrecognizable. Brunetti searches in vain for someone who can identify the body. Then he receives a call promising some tantalizing information.

For Commissario Guido Brunetti it begins with an early morning phone call. A sudden act of vandalism has just been committed in the chill Venetian dawn. But Brunetti soon discovers that the perpetrator is no petty criminal, for the culprit at the scene is none other than Paola Brunetti, his wife.