Changes

Flavia Petrelli, who will be remembered by regular readers of the Commissario Guido Brunetti series as one of the suspects in the first case, ''Death at La Fenice'', has returned to Venice to sing the lead in ''Tosca''. But this time it's Petrelli who feels that she is a victim and for the strangest of reasons: she's being inundated with gifts. It began in other cities - the yellow roses thrown, in abundance, on to the stage, but this time there are even more roses. Her dressing room is filled with them and there's even a massive bouquet inside the locked apartment building where she's staying. It was Brunetti who proved her innocence the last time and it's to him that she turns with this latest problem.

The star of the story is Venice itself and Donna Leon, who has lived there for thirty years, brings the city to life. It's not the tourist haunts - almost Disney theme park - which you see, but the city in which Venetians live and work. The end pages of the book are maps of Venice and you'll be able to move around with Brunetti and his team - on land or on water. The people fit perfectly with their surroundings, too. There's just that little bit of needle between the Venetians and those from elsewhere in Italy: even the language is different.