As Venice braces for the onslaught of a winter tempest and acqua alta - the rising waters from exceptionally high tides - Commissario Guido Brunetti is pulled from his warm bed to find that an old friend, Dotoressa Brett Lynch, has been savagely beaten in the palazzo home she shares with Flavia Petrelli, the reigning diva of La Scala. Brunetti suspects that this is not a simple crime, and then, as the flood waters rise, a corpse is discovered.
