The Provenance at Palazzo Solimbergo: 2

Venice, 1933. A masterpiece can be forged. So can an alibi. Josie Calloway hires Vee Marchand to learn why the sharpest eye for forgery in Venice suddenly endorsed a painting he once distrusted. Before Vee can learn the reason, Selwyn Loxley is pulled from a canal after the Redentore fireworks. The city calls it another festival drowning. Vee notices the bruise behind his ear. To expose the lie, she must read old pigments, a miscaptioned photograph and forty missing minutes while every suspect hides behind a lantern-lit alibi. Her most honest guide is Nico Fabris, a boat restorer with work-roughened hands, an instinct for dangerous currents and no interest in promises neither of them can keep. In Venice, every reflection hides a second city. Before the sale closes, Vee must prove which beautiful surface conceals a forgery, and which conceals a murderer.