The Independently Published The Mask of the Council Paperback

A murdered glassmaker. A hidden cipher. A city where every mask hides a sin.Renaissance Venice is dressed for Carnival, but beneath the music, lanterns, and painted faces, an old crime is beginning to breathe again.Luca Vettori, apprentice to the murdered Murano glass master Tommaso Barovier, has inherited more than broken glass. His master's final work hides a cipher that points toward forbidden records, vanished ships, and a secret circle inside Venice's most powerful houses. Accused of treason and hunted through the canals, Luca must follow the clues before the Republic buries him beside the truth.Serena Contarini, daughter of a noble house with debts, secrets, and bloodstained obligations, has spent her life learning which questions women are not supposed to ask. But when a dead woman's ring, a false plague order, and a white Carnival mask connect her family to the disappearance of innocent people, Serena must choose between preserving her name and exposing the city that taught her silence.Together, Luca and Serena are drawn into Palazzo Dandolo's glittering feast, where marked goblets, hidden glass, forged letters, and masked officials reveal a conspiracy older and darker than either of them imagined. The deeper they dig, the clearer the truth becomes: Venice did not merely forget the dead.It numbered them.And somewhere across the lagoon, on the quarantine island of Lazzaretto Vecchio, a hidden ledger may still hold the names the city tried to erase.The Mask of the Council is Book 2 in The Murano Cipher, a richly atmospheric historical conspiracy adventure series filled with Renaissance intrigue, secret archives, coded glass, dangerous relics of memory, and the haunting beauty of Venice at Carnival.Perfect for readers who love historical mysteries, secret societies, ancient documents, Renaissance settings, and fast-paced historical adventure.