A Mafia crime. Mysterious and convoluted, it unfolds in Vigata, Sicily, a fantastic and symbolic city where Andrea Camilleri sets his second detective novel featuring Inspector Montalbano.

Mind and eye of justice, one could say that Montalbano solves his cases thanks to his close relationship with the environment. He is intensely Sicilian, and every element of his homeland transforms into a message of significance for him: Montalbano deciphers each detail as if it were a symbol of an archaic script.

However, this time, where the Mafia crime is revealed, there is another, more poignant and ritualistic one. The dead bodies of two young lovers are discovered deep inside a cave, guarded by a terracotta dog. A murder that took place fifty years ago.

Montalbano conducts the investigation with the help of a willing group of elderly people, "investigation in slippers, in houses of another era, with a cup of coffee in hand." [Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]