There was in literature "Man in the Iron Mask", there is now "a woman in mask of flesh." A more psychological novel policeman with, as is customary in the stories of Donna Leon, the inevitable toxic waste trafficking related to the Camorra. So we're back in Venice, under the snow. A rifleman investigation into the death of his informant, an entrepreneur transport collapse. It comes seek assistance from Commissioner Guido Brunetti as one of the contacts that entrepreneur seems to live in Venice. Soon after, the gendarme with the environmental safeguarding administration is found murdered in the industrial area of Marghera. Routine. At the same time, Brunetti met a strange young woman, Franca, a close friend of her stepmother Donatella Falier. It is very cultivated and he spends it with a delicious evening discussing ancient literature: Virgil, Cicero .... What seems difficult to understand, which is why this young woman, who appears to be her husband of over thirty years her age sincere love, bears the scars of multiple cosmetic surgeries that have totally transformed, while in natural, she was so pretty .... A dense novel, based entirely on the discussion hints, dealing with loneliness intelligent and cultured people forced most of the time to work with people who are not. And also people who have a deep desire to discover the other side of things, to reveal their complete path, to understand them. This is the case of Guido Brunetti, his wife Paola and his father .... Falier the count, who also plays an important role in this new case.