From “the undisputed crime fiction queen” (The Baltimore Sun), one of Commissario Guido Brunetti’s most enigmatic cases: leading Donna Leon’s iconic detective from the local dry cleaner all the way to Vienna’s most elite aristocrats.

Over the years, Donna Leon’s bestselling 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 audiences 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 cleaners 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?