An unofficial mission thousands of miles from Aosta, three friends chase each other and chase a traitor. A crucial passage in the great novel of Rocco Schiavone, who faces his ghosts this time to close a circle, one of the most painful of his life.

After Vecchie conoscenze and Le ossa parlano, Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone is on an unofficial mission thousands of miles from his hated Aosta, with his old friend Brizio. They want to find Furio, his other lifelong companion, who disappeared between Buenos Aires, Mexico and Costa Rica. Furio, for his part, has set out at breakneck speed on the trail of Sebastiano, the fourth of the group, who fled to South America to escape a terrible guilt and subsequent punishment. The backstory is far in the past and has shaken the lives of all of them. And now Rocco and Brizio must prevent Furio's "madness," but they also want to understand Seba's whys, what were the deep reasons for that horrible betrayal that Rocco has already tried to come to terms with, so that they can properly bid farewell to a friendship as old as they are. The search appears in vain, for the continent is vast and those who escape leave only faint clues, suspended in reality between disappearing and wanting to explain themselves or atone. The detective, as a fine investigator, knows well how to arm a reckless hunt, and Brizio is quick-witted enough of hand to back him up adequately. In this mixture of thriller and psychology, it is inevitable that the many memories of a childhood with the gang in Trastevere crowd into Rocco's mind, that small world where only a lucky chance decided that Schiavone became a policeman and not a "bandit," a guard and not a thief, on a par with his inseparable cronies, united in a friendship that is no more, destroyed by time, fate or perhaps just personal appetites. Finding Sebastian mysteriously missing in South America will perhaps be possible. Finding the friend again will be impossible. Antonio Manzini returns to tell the ghosts of his Deputy Police Chief, but this time he does it to close a circle, one of the most painful of his life.