Another good read from Donna Leon – first published in 1994, so 27 years old now. The body of a man is found, dressed in woman’s clothing. The knee jerk reaction is that the deceased was a transvestite and a sex worker. But Guido Brunetti notices that his legs have been shaved recently and where the razor has nicked the skin, no bleeding has occurred. No one else notices this, but Brunetti begins to think that the dressing of the body and the shaving of the legs has most likely all occurred after death – so who was he ? – and why this dressing up charade ? All is of course solved – if not resolved – eventually, but Donna Leon takes us into the world of big business where the product on sale is sex. She takes us cleverly through the worlds of the workers at the lower end of the food chain, and that of the powerful, rich, highly respected untouchable citizens of Venice who are actually the criminals behind it all.
