ABOUT
THE BOOK

Alejandro Ballesteros, a young Spanish art historian, arrives in wintry, misty Venice to study Giorgione’s enigmatic painting The Tempest, which has obsessed him for years. But on his first day in the flooded city he witnesses a murder, whose victim turns out to be Fabio Valenzin, a notorious forger and trafficker in works of art. Valenzin appears to have had close ties with Gabetti, director of the Accademia where The Tempest hangs, and with Gabetti’s enchanting daughter. Like a dense spider-web, the spirit of Venice weaves itself around Ballesteros and draws him ever deeper into its mysteries until, having come to the city in search of the truth about a painting, he finds the key to his own life.