Territorial Rights by Muriel Spark

Dust jacket notes: "Venice, with its fading palazzos, its promise of sexual intrigue, and its countless hiding places for secrets best kept hidden, is the setting for Muriel Spark's glittering new novel. Robert arrives off-season at the Pensione Sofia to escape a complicated affair and simplify his life. But in Venice nothing is what it seems - even the innocent pensione has a body buried in the garden - and Robert is soon ensnared in a plot as intricate and ingenious as any Muriel Spark has devised. Drawn together unexpectedly by blackmail and an almost forgotten crime, a glorious rogues' gallery of characters scurry to protect themselves. But who is safe away from home, without territorial rights? In the Venice of Muriel Spark, appearances are not only deciving, but as fragile as houses built on water...."