On the eve of her wedding, the beautiful opera singer Malvina is mysteriously "killed" and abducted by the malevolent Dr. Droz. Felisberto, an innocent piano tuner, is summoned to Droz's secluded villa to service his strange musical automata. Little by little Felisberto learns of the doctor's plans to stage a "diabolic opera" and of Malvina's fate. He secretly conspires to rescue her, only to become trapped himself in the web of Droz's perverse universe....

After spending four years in prison for killing his girlfriend, lumbering man-child Franz Biberkopf is finally released back into society. He wants to stay honest now he has left jail, but it is tough in the Alexanderplatz section of Berlin. After failing to succeed in several 'regular' jobs, he falls in with some old cohorts and an on-again, off-again association with thugs. Post-war society is crumbling, and it appears that nothing will bring...

Quietly in their sleep : Mysterious deaths in a Venice retirement community are brought to Inspector Brunetti's attention by a young nun who is then nearly killed herself. Brunetti's investigation turns up some unsettling connections to a secret church organization and to one of its charismatic members, a priest who is the community's resident confessor.--Container. Acqua alta : First a museum director and an antiquities dealer are murdered. Then...