"Timothy Williams was selected by The Observer as one of the "10 Best Modern European Crime Writers" for his series featuring Northern Italian police detective Piero Trotti. Now, 20 years after his last investigation, Trotti returns! After decades as a commissario in his city on the River Po, Piero Trotti has retired. But his newfound peace is brief. An old friend calls him to Siena to give him urgent news: a known hit man has returned to Italy to kill Trotti. The former inspector must admit that he isn't entirely undeserving, as his mistaken accusations and failed gambles have cost innocent lives in the course of his investigations. Though Trotti carries the burden of these deaths with him each day, someone else has appeared to enact his own, long-awaited retribution. Traveling across Italy to escape his pursuer, Trotti revisits his own past and searches for clues to the cold-case murder of Valerio Gracchi, a leftist radical who became a national media sensation. But even the right answers may not save Trotti and his loved ones"--

"The newly retired Piero Trotti has been called to Siena by an old friend. The Carabiniere officer warns Trotti that someone is out to kill him as revenge for events linked to a case from 1988. The murder of Valerio Gracchi, a man Trotti once accused of terrorism, remains unsolved. By the time of his death, Gracchi had risen to the head of BRAMAN, an addiction recovery center in Trapani, and had attained fame for his television program denouncing political corruption in Sicily. While the Carabinieri wrote Gracchi's death off as a Mafia hit, no one has ever claimed responsibility for the shooting, and several key leaders at BRAMAN have benefited from his fall. As he travels between cities, Trotti meets a young African American girl named Wilma, who is searching for her father. Wilma enlists Trotti's help, but it is soon apparent she is hiding something, and Trotti finds himself drawn into a web of violence that will result in enormous personal cost"--