After reconnecting with her mother, who had abandoned her, Inspector Nives Bonora is ready to come to terms with her past and a painful secret she has learned. But the answers she seeks will have to wait for who knows how long, since a young woman’s disappearance thrusts Nives into a new case, in a new city, and with a new team. A serial killer is on the loose in Bologna, and the victims are exclusively young women with red hair; no witnesses or security cameras ever emerge. The search for the solution forces the inspector to immerse herself in the obsessions of a homicidal maniac as she combs the flat countryside around the city and the streets of Bologna, hotel rooms abruptly vacated, and underground parties with their dark ambient music, plus the possible figments of her own imagination – and that of a ruthless killer.

Cinzia Bomoll has Romani roots on her mother’s side and grew up in Bologna, where she received a degree in literature before moving to Rome, New York, and the Mojave Desert in California, then returned to Bologna, where she lives today. A writer of stories since she was very young, she made her literary debut with a story in the collection Quello che ho da dirvi (Giulio Mozzi, Einaudi, 1998). She has published the novels Lei che nelle foto non sorrideva (Fazi, 2006), 69 (Fazi, 2011), Cuori a spigoli (Ianieri, 2019), and Non dire gatto (Ponte alle Grazie, 2023). Also a screenwriter (winner of the 2020 Solinas Award) and film and television director, Bomoll has made three feature films: Il segreto di Rahil (2007), Let’s Dance (2010), and La California (2022), this last selected for the Freestyle section of the 17th Rome Film Fest.