Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venice Questura is shocked to hear that Brett Lynch, a friend since a murder case at La Fenice, has suffered a savage beating. The attack, in the beautiful palazzo home of Flavia Petrelli, reigning diva of La Scala, had come with a message: 'Don't keep that appointment with Dottor Semenzato.' Then, with the storm clouds gathering fast over the city, a man's body is found ...Amazon.com ReviewAn American living near Venice, Donna Leon has crafted an imaginative series of mysteries set in the waterborne city, all starring police detective Guido Brunetti. In this, the fifth installment, Brunetti sets out to investigate an assault on an American archeologist who herself is investigating a museum exhibition of Chinese antiquities. The moods of Venice and the reflections of the canny, emotional detective are the most affecting qualities of the book.From Publishers WeeklyIntelligent and charming Guido Brunetti, the commissioner of police in Venice (seen before in Death at La Fenice and Death in a Strange Country), continues to confront corruption in his fifth adventure. His moral anger pervades and gives substance to this mystery, from its peripheral incidents to the resolution, in which the villain explains all and which occurs in the rising waters of the title. Investigating an assault on American archeologist Brett Lynch, Brunetti wonders whether the two men who beat her are simply homophobic (Lynch's lover is a popular soprano) or, as Lynch suggests, whether they were trying to prevent her planned meeting with museum director Francesco Semenzato. Five years earlier, Lynch and Semenzato brought a touring display of Chinese antiquities to Venice. Recently, Lynch, on a dig in China, saw the same pieces and realized some had been replaced by fakes. Brunetti's sources suggest that Semenzato's interests in antiques are more diverse than is proper for a powerful museum director, but there's no opportunity for a confrontation: only four days after the beating, Semenzato is murdered. As Brunetti wends his way around the insider's Venice and through accumulating information (not all obtained entirely honestly), he also deals with his superiors, his wife and teenage daughter, all the while remaining the thoughtful, sensitive sleuth readers have come to expect.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.