Early in the morning, Inspector Montalbano receives a phone call, but this time it's not Catarella announcing a murder, but a man called Riccardino who asks him when he'll be arriving at the meeting. Shortly after, he gets another call, announcing the customary murder; Riccardino has been shot and killed outside a bar. Thus begins an intricate investigation further complicated by phone calls from "the Author," in a remarkable foray into metafiction. After Andrea Camilleri's 2019 death, publishers honored his request to posthumously publish this 28th and final Montalbano mystery, following The Cook of the Halcyon.