Synopsis

Fabrizio Mieli, a psychoanalyst, is treating Zac, a fourteen-year-old schizophrenic boy, as handsome as an elf and whose only friends are dead children. One day, Zac tells him he found the headless corpse of a teenager in the river: a real dead body this time, not one of his ghosts. The decapitated body is that of Juliette, a thirteen-year-old French girl. No clues, no witnesses. Bruno Ligabue, a lonely police commissioner with a heavy heart, begins to investigate and soon discovers that the owner of a bar frequented by teenagers is offering drinks, and perhaps more, to girls who can't say no. It's a lead, the first. But Agostina Picariello, the prosecutor in charge of the case, a brusque and extraordinarily ugly woman, disagrees with Ligabue. The conflict between the two is immediate, instinctive: Agostina is convinced that it was Zac, the boy who found her, who killed Juliette, while the commissioner profoundly disagrees. Two leads, two personalities, two opposing worldviews. But Ligabue and Picariello are much more similar than they think: as the investigation progresses, their mistakes, fears, and shortcomings emerge. The discovery of the killer will be unexpected, and will take mysterious and obscure paths. But along with the resolution of the case will be the revelations of the characters, and their deepest truths will emerge just as Juliette's body did from the river. A choral novel in which the characters' lives intertwine like threads of a single fabric: first that of Commissioner Bruno Ligabue, traversed by the deepest pain imaginable, and held together by tenacity and a passion for his work; then that of Fabrizio, an unresolved psychoanalyst; Raimondo, a grumpy but friendly coroner; Brenda, a strong-willed woman who will draw Ligabue out of his isolation; and then that of Aurora, Zac's radiant mother; and those of the commissioner's elderly and caring neighbors, of fragile and insecure young girls; and of a psychotic dog who takes charge of Bruno's and his recovery. A web of relationships born from the death of a young girl and culminating in the discovery that, despite everything, life is still beautiful; and in the strange family that will form in the name of a mutual and powerful human compassion, everyone will eventually find their place. At least for a while.