In this masterpiece of psychological suspense, Italian Police Commissioner Aurelio Zen is dispatched to investigate the kidnapping of Ruggiero Miletti, a powerful Perugian industrialist. But nobody much wants Zen to succeed: not the local authorities, who view him as an interloper, and certainly not Miletti's children, who seem content to let the head of the family languish in the hands of his abductors -- if he's still alive. Was Miletti truly the...

A murder mystery presented as opera buffa. It features Aurelio Zen of the Naples police in a scheme to dissuade the daughters of a wealthy widow from marrying Mafia men. The operation leads to the discovery of a gang of terrorists, masquerading as garbage collectors. By the author of Dead Lagoon.