Once, when he was a child, his father jokingly told him that the moon in the sky was made of paper. At that time, he believed his father and took it to heart. Now, as a mature man, intelligent, with a sharp mind and intuition, he believed once again, as he did when he was a young child, in two women who told him that the moon is made of paper.

Between two strong and dangerous women, Inspector Montalbano must fight: one extroverted, with incredible sensuality, the other secretive, with morbid passions, capable of taking on everything and hiding everything.

At the same time, blind footsteps lead him to the mystery of a "dead" house, where around a corpse in an indecent position, mud is stirred and dirty, rotten waters of theatrical and irritable passions stagnate along with the dregs of a sordid politics that allow prominent dead and happy vices to emerge.

In this novel, where the dark swamp (identical to social death) becomes allied with the government policy addicted to usual abnormality, the plot unfolds slowly.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]