Commissario Guido Brunetti #25, following FALLING IN LOVE. 15 years ago, a teenage girl fell into a canal late at night. Unable to swim, she went under and started to drown, only surviving thanks to a nearby man, an alcoholic, who heard her splashes and pulled her out, though not before she suffered irreparable brain damage that left her in a state of permanent childhood, unable to learn or mature. The drunk man claimed he saw her thrown into the canal by another man. Now, at a fundraising dinner for a Venetian charity, a wealthy and aristocratic patroness asks Brunetti if he will investigate.