In 2006 it was shortlisted for the CWA Duncan Lawrie International Dagger for best translated crime novel of the year.

[1] The story takes place between Vigàta and picturesque site of Tindari, a promontory of historical and archaeological beauty.

Montalbano is investigating the mysterious bond that unites a couple and an unrelated man in the same violent death.

Thanks to his unique professional insight, and perhaps even more to his feelings as a sensitive man, Montalbano successfully concludes the investigation, moving inbetween the boundaries set by the world of tradition and that of modernity.

In his fifties, examining his life and a future that seems to be saturated with senseless technology and hopeless inhumanity, with corruption and globalisation rendering everything shapeless, Montalbano feels out of place and lonely.