On the night of September 3rd, 1992, on the boat ride across the placid Lake Iseo, Pietro Rota sees the impressive silhouette of Montisola rear up after twelve years away. He had run off to Milan, with the aim of becoming a successful journalist, but things didn’t play out the way he hoped. This is not the triumphal homecoming he always dreamed of: he had simply responded to his father’s call for help. Emilio Ercoli, the richest man on the island, has been brutally murdered, and the investigators are leaning towards Nevio Rota. There was bad blood between the two men, it was well known, and several clues led straight to the latter. Convinced his father is innocent, Pietro starts his own informal probe to prove it, together with an old friend, traffic warden Cristian Bonetti.

Jacopo De Michelis was born in Milan and lives in Venice, where he works as an editor at Marsilio Editori. He has been a translator, editor of anthologies, editorial consultant, and teacher of narratology at NABA in Milan. A photography fan, he publishes his shots on Instagram as @geidiemme. In 2022, his first novel, La stazione, was published by Giunti.