Giorgio De Franchis is a tough man and a man of action. After a career in the secret service, he’s started to work freelance for the security police of countries most vulnerable to terrorist attacks, and even there, he doesn’t do things halfway. One night he receives a phone call: outside the Paris Opera House in Place de la Bastille, Daniel Morel has been attacked and seriously wounded. Daniel happens to be the love of Giorgio’s life, since they were schoolmates, the only truly signficant relationship a loner like Giorgio has ever had, and a profound, indissoluble bond strong enough to defy any and all conventions. Giorgio leaves for Paris immediately to hunt down the assailants, and finds himself entangled in an intrigue involving Claude Monet’s masterpiece Impression, Sunrise. The painting was back in the museum of which Daniel was the curator after turning up in Corsica in fairly mysterious circumstances, along with eight more major artworks, all missing for five long years. One look at the painting, however, and Daniel had known it was a fake, standing in for the genuine article probably ever since it was found in Corsica.

Valter Catoni (1954, Rome) is an executive and businessman. His first novel, L’eterna lotta, was published in Mondadori’s "Gialli" series in 2012.