On a late October Sunday morning in Gravigna, local maresciallo Perillo is having breakfast with ex-NYPD detective Nico Doyle when he is called back to the station in Greve. Laura Benati, the young manager of Hotel Bella Vista, is worried - her bartender and good friend eighty-year-old Cesare Costanzi has been missing for three days. The next morning, Jimmy, co-owner of Bar All'Angolo, Gravigna's local cafe, discovers Cesare s body, stabbed several times in the chest. Why would anyone kill Cesare? That's for Nico to find out, as Perillo once again turns to Nico for help with the investigation.