As Montalbano recovers from the injuries he sustained in Rounding the Mark, aided and abetted by his girlfriend Livia's ministrations, a local girl goes missing and the whole community takes an interest in the case. But why are the kidnappers so sure that the girl's impoverished father and dying mother will be able to find a fortune?
Montalbano is called in to help, and in his own inimitable style eventually ferrets out the truth about a kidnapping that is anything but straightforward.
