Minuit sur le grand canal

Working for the New York based International Wire Service as a reporter, hard drinking Bill Fenner is dispatched to Venice to cover the aftermath of a bombing at a peace conference, all fourteen diplomats in the closed door nuclear disarmament meeting killed including American Alan Prentiss. Fenner is surprised to be given the assignment as there are much better reporters working for the service. Because of the nature of the assignment, Fenner is not surprised to run into his old boss, CIA agent Frank Rosenfeld, who kicked him out of the agency three years ago for having been played by his now ex-wife, Sandra Fane, discovered to be a Communist agent. He is only a little more surprised to learn that it was Rosenfeld who arranged for him to come to Venice, the reason: Rosenfeld believes that Fane, who is known to be in Venice, has something to do with the bombing, and wants Fenner to draw her out into the open. Dr. Pierre Vaugiroud, a political analyst, had been doing research on behalf of the IWS on the peace negotiations, and is more central to the bombing than Fenner could have imagined as Vaugiroud has concluded that it was Prentiss who acted as the suicide bomber.