After a "warning shot" from his body, Brunetti has to slow down. While on sick leave on the lagoon island of San Erasmo, he met the beekeeper Davide Casati, with whom he quickly developed an unusual bond while rowing. The inspector is astonished to find that his new acquaintance had previously been in the same boat as his father. When Brunetti finds Casati's body after a storm, he feels obliged to get to the bottom of the matter to the dead man and his daughter Federica. The inspector does not want to rule out a crime because Casati had a bitter dispute with the neighboring vegetable farmer Zanirato, whose pesticides allegedly poisoned his bees. Zanirato's son, who works for the coast guard, and his superior, Capitano Dantone, are not very well received by the investigations by the Dogestadt Commissioner, who is on sick leave. The environmentalist Patrizia Minati, who had Casati's soil samples examined, is also withholding information. Another trail leads into the past and to the covered-up environmental scandal of a large company and its lawyer. When the investigation stalls, the inspector no longer takes his health into account: he has himself declared fit for duty so that he can finally solve the mysterious case with full commitment as usual.
—ADR Das Erste