While sailing in the Venice Lagoon with his lady love, Alessandro Nicoli finds an ancient gold coin hard by the deserted island of San Giacomo in Paludo. For Venice native Nicoli, former reporter and accidental detective, it’s the start of an intricate investigation that will draw him into the most secret canals and alleys of the Serenissima, as he tries to unravel the enigma of two murders in Venice with no apparent connection to one another.

Alberto Toso Fei, journalist and author of fiction and non-fiction, has written a series of books combining history and mythology, real-life and legend, translated into several languages and selling thousands of copies. His books are like journeys back in time, through the layers of history; they start with Leggende veneziane and Misteri di Venezia – an oral history project, as the author recorded ancient tales told by the elderly that would have otherwise been lost – and extend to Veneziænigma, the  graphic novel Orientalia (illustrated by Marco Tagliapietra), and the most recent I graffiti di Venezia (co-written with Desi Marangon), which maps out over six thousand samples of historical graffiti and gives them a voice: a story.