During Carnival, Urbino Macintyre discovers a murder in a convent
The Charity of Santa Crispina 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.