Shylock has grown wealthy through money-lending, the only profession open to Jewish businessmen of the time, but faces indignity and danger when he ventures beyond the Jewish quarter. In the same city, though in a different world, lives Antonio, a Christian merchant beset by worry over the fate of his trading vessels and his increasing isolation from his best friend Bassanio. The younger man has fallen in love with the beautiful Portia, and seeks...

Vendetta : A high profile attorney and a prominent tax adviser are murdered within days of each other, and Brunetti's investigation leads to Senora Ceroni, and a human-trafficking syndicate within the cream of Venetian society. The anonymous Venetian : The investigation of a murdered bank executive, whose body is found clad in women's attire, leads Brunetti to the subculture of transvestites and male prostitutes, among whom are many characters that...

Shylock loans money to a man he despises, the merchant Antonio, only if a pound of Antonio's flesh will be due, in a court of law, upon default. Antonio borrows the money so that his friend Bessanio can travel to woo the woman he loves, Portia, whose freedom to marry is bound up in a fairy-tale decree of her father's.

Death In a strange country. The body of a young man found floating in a Venetian canal has been stripped of all valuables, except for a very visible packet of cocaine. When the man is identified as a health inspector at the U.S. military base in nearby Vicenza, Brunetti's boss Patta gets worried about political reverberations and is eager to dismiss the case as a drug-related murder.--Container. A sea of troubles. When the murder of two fishermen...

"History of Napoleon's art looting of Italy and the subsequent formation of the Louvre"--

Willful behavior: A young woman is murdered, but Brunetti can find no sexual or financial motive. Blood from a stone: Fake designer sunglasses and handbags - reason enough for murder? As Commissario Brunetti investigates what seems to be a gangland execution among rival immigrant African peddlers of knockoff luxury goods, he discovers dozens of raw diamonds in the apartment of an informant.

The Wonder Pets travel to Liverpool to save a band of Beetles who are trapped in a yellowish submarine; Ming-Ming tries a rescue on her own, and then the Wonder Pets travel to Venice to help save a Kitten floating down the canal; It's off the Madagascar to help a young Chameleon in trouble, and will Ming-Ming and Tuck's feud stand in the way of rescuing a Baby Platypus?; The Wonder Pets are off to Switzerland on a woolly rescue, and then they take...

Doctored evidence. Signora Battestini is dead and to everyone who knew her, it wasn't a moment too soon. Her impoverished Romanian cleaning lady gets pegged for the crime and Brunetti's boss declares the case closed. What continues to mystify Brunetti is why the old woman had so much money with no visible means of income. And what exactly has her lawyer done with her many scattered bank accounts?--Container. Uniform justice. Brunetti is deeply affected...

"The author chronicles his search for a fabled antique rose, a tale that takes us back to the time of Josephine Bonaparte, and which looks into the future of this much-beloved flower."--