I've read quite a few books in this Inspector Brunetti series, all of which I've enjoyed. I haven't read them in chronological order, but that hasn't mattered: the only difference it makes is that Brunetti's two children vary in age. This particular book is early in the series and, I thought, one of her very best with the added bonus that I learned some more about the backgrounds of the characters. I read it quickly as the story was so engrossing. The chilly dampness of Venice in the winter adds a tremendous atmosphere to the book as the rising sea level of the Acqua Alta is anticipated and experienced by the characters as water ebbs and flows over the pavements of the city.
Brett Lynch is back from book one and so is her lesbian lover Flavia Petrelli which makes it nice since the reader that reads these books in order, knows the characters as well as Brunetti's family. Brett gets beaten to a pulp in relation to her profession as an archeologist and soon Brunetti is trying to figure out where original artifacts from gravesites and museums have ended up. Of course they have ended up in Venezia and he has to get acquainted with quite mad members of the Sicilian mafia. It is not so much a mystery to who have committed a murder, because someone does get murdered, but how to get to the culprit. And how he has to do all this in a flooded Venezia, Acqua Alta. The latter gives a true feel to what the city is like in February and the weather does complicate the solving of the case.