June, 1925: Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are called to investigate when a woman fails to return from a supervised outing from Bedlam. After the previous few weeks - with a bloody murder, a terrible loss, and startling revelations about Holmes - Russell is feeling a bit unbalanced herself. The last thing she wants is to deal with the mad, but she can't say no. Lady Vivian Beaconsfield has spent most of her life in asylums, yet she seemed to be improving. So why did she disappear? Did she take the family's jewels with her, or did someone else? The trail leads Russell and Holmes from Bedlam's stony halls to the warm Venice lagoon, where ethereal beauty is jarred by Mussolini's Blackshirts, the gilded Lido set may be tempting a madwoman, and where Cole Porter sits at a piano, playing with ideas...
