The owner of the hotel in which Montalbano is living is shot dead on New Year's Eve. Was it an accident or something more sinister? Also, a dying woman's last words leads him to re-open a 40-year-old murder case, which may have resulted in a miscarriage of justice.

Montalbano investigates the murder of a loan shark, for which there is initially no shortage of suspects, but the later discovery of another body nearby complicates matters. Meanwhile someone is putting up posters around Vigàta asking the inhabitants to vote in a referendum about the reputation of a politician's wife.