During Carnival, Urbino Macintyre discovers a murder in a convent
Each of the sisters of the Charity of Santa Crispina chooses a different way to die. Some relax into the arms of death, eager for their eternal rewards. Some leave this world violently, screaming in pain as they take their last breaths. The convent is a severe place, its rooms spartan, its food bland. But the time has come for Carnival in Venice, and a tourist will take any room he can find. Photographer Val Gibbon has come to document the renovation of a nearby church, but he has hardly begun his work before a knife finds its way into his chest, and the convent becomes a crime scene.
 
American expatriate Urbino Macintyre, a biographer and amateur sleuth, sets aside his plans for Carnival to look into the murder. In this ancient city, nothing is ever as it seems—especially not in the season when the only creature not wearing a mask is death itself.