When Commissario Brunetti receives a visit from one of his wifes students with a strange and vague interest in investigating the possibility of a pardon for a crime committed by her grandfather many years ago he thinks little of it despite being intrigued by the girls intelligence and moral conscience. But when the girl is found stabbed to death Claudia Leonardo is no longer Paolas student but instead becomes Brunettis case. Claudia seemed to have no discernible living family but lived with an elderly Austrian woman. Brunetti is stunned by the extraordinary art collection the old woman keeps and when she in turn is found dead the case begins to unlock long buried secrets of collaboration during the war secrets few in Italy are happy to explore...