After a disturbing dream, where his Chief Bonetti-Alderighi comes crying at Montalbano's door begging to be hidden and protected from the Mafia, which has taken political power and Mafioso Totò Riina has become prime minister,[1] the Inspector is woken up by a window shutter banging against the wall and soon later by another banging, at the door, by Catarella who, as usual, announces the finding of a corpse.

Under a steady downpour and between various expletives, the Inspector and his men, including a grumpy Mimì Augello, Montalbano's deputy, succeed in retrieving the dead body, cut into pieces inside a bag and buried in a field of clay used by potters.

Trying to understand what is happening to his deputy, Montalbano discovers that Mimì is betraying his wife with another woman and telling lies about his being engaged in police activities that keep him busy all night.

Meanwhile the investigation into the cut-up body, impossible to identify, becomes even more entangled due to a complaint by the beautiful South American Dolores whose husband, a ship officer, has disappeared.

What with the search for the missing husband, Augello's strange behaviour, and old mafiosi rituals which recall biblical passages (the Gospel's "the potter’s field, to bury strangers in", Matthew 27:7), Montalbano's faith in his closest friends begins to falter.