A cold case for Deputy Police Chief Schiavone, who takes it not as the usual tenth-grade breakup, but with painful compassion, because this is perhaps his cruelest investigation. Antonio Manzini proceeds another chapter in his character's great novel. A unique novel composed of multiple intricate detective stories that explore the complexities of human nature.

A retired doctor discovers human bones in the woods. It is the corpse of a child. Michela Gambino of the Aosta forensic unit, in private so imaginatively paranoid that Rocco Schiavone often feels like he is in a psychiatric ward, but extraordinarily competent, manages to determine the main details: about ten years old, death by strangulation, probable violence. Examination of the findings, a complex and obstacle-filled investigation, finally leads to a name and a date: Mirko, who disappeared six years earlier. His mother, a single woman, had never resigned. He had last been seen sitting on a low wall near the school after class, apparently waiting for someone. A cold case for detective Deputy Police Chief, who takes it not as the usual tenth-grade breakdown, but with painful compassion, and with the disgust of having to deal with the secret codes of an inhuman world. An investigation that forces him to logic, to proceed systematically, to decipher messages and clues from underground environments. And to collaborate closely with colleagues and subordinates, whose private lives he becomes increasingly familiar with: Antonio's reckless loves, Italo's shipwreck, Casella's and Deruta's recent romantic accommodations, even D'Intino's unexpected sensitivity, the ultimately comic fixations of the two from the lab. Surrounding him are the echoes of the past of which the ghost of Marina, his murdered wife, is the throbbing commentary. He realizes more and more that he is inadequate for other loves. It is as if loneliness is becoming the demanding companion he cannot do without. This is perhaps Rocco Schiavone's cruelest investigation. The loneliness of the child victim is total, perennial, metaphysical, and hovers over the busy affairs of all the characters making them feel utterly futile to Rocco, confirming him in his deep-seated pessimism. In Le ossa parlano, Antonio Manzini proceeds another chapter in his character's great novel. A unique novel composed of multiple intricate detective stories that explore the complexities of human nature.