Overture in Venice

Clare protested her innocence, but Venetian-born Guy Lombardi was sure she must be lying. 'It isn't usual, ' he pointed out sardonically, 'for a tourist to become acquainted with a man with a police record, and yet another who is a notorious mob leader.'

But that was what happened when, on the final evening of her week's holiday in Venice, Clare Lambert lingered alone to admire the splendours of St Mark's Square. And when she and her friends moved on to an hotel on the shores of Lake Garda, she found that she was being followed - and followed again - by men who were at best thieves and extortionists and at worst murderers . . .