Over the years, Donna Leon's best-selling Commissario Guido Brunetti series has conquered the hearts of lovers of finely-plotted character-driven mysteries all over the world. Brunetti, both a perceptive sleuth and a principled family man, has exposed readers to Venice in all its aspects: its history, beauty, architecture, seasons, food, and social life, but also the crime and corruption that seethe below the surface of La Serenissima.

In The Golden Egg, as the first leaves of autumn begin to fall, Commissario Guido Brunetti's wife Paola comes to him with a request. The mentally handicapped man who worked at their dry clearers has suffered a fatal sleeping pill overdose, and Paola loathes the idea that he lived and died without anyone noticing or helping him. To please her, Brunetti investigates the death and is surprised to find nothing on the man: no birth certificate, no driver's license, no credit cards. As far as the Italian government is concerned, he never existed. And yet, there is a body. As secrets unravel, Brunetti suspects an aristocratic family might be connected to the case. But why would anyone want this sweet, simple-minded man dead?