On the wintry Tuscan coast, the wealthy elite retreat to their lavish holiday homes. But the season turns sinister when a couple vanishes from a locked villa, and the body of a dubious count washes ashore, bludgeoned to death. With echoes of Agatha Christie and the erudite suspense of Umberto Eco, a sly meditation on class, illusion, and desire, this literary mystery is both sharply observant and darkly entertaining.

Carlo Fruttero (1926-2012) and Franco Lucentini (1920-2002) are legendary authors in Europe, known as pioneers of the modern crime genre. An Enigma by the Sea, Runaway Horses and The Lover of No Fixed Abode are three of six works of fiction they wrote together.