Loosely based on real events that took place during Matteo Messina Denaro's thirty years on the run. A disgraced politician is gifted a second chance when secret services involve him in an operation to root out an elusive Mafia boss. Using his personal connection as the Boss' godfather, his task is to get him to reveal his hiding place in their secret letters.
Set in the small, mountainous village of Vermiglio during the waning days of WWII, a series of dramatic, consequential events unfold after the arrival of a taciturn Sicilian soldier, who hides out in town after deserting the army. While there, the soldier develops a romance with a provincial family’s eldest daughter.
Back in Genoa for the first time in twenty-five years, to attend the funeral of his best friend from when he was growing up, Luca reunites with the old gang of yore. All of them are sure that the late lamented had brought it on himself, with his dissipated lifestyle. Not Luca: he wants to know, investigate, understand. He searches his memory, in a city as changed as he is, as characters and situations reemerge ghost-like from a buried past, along with Luca’s own true nature, which he thought he had definitively tamed.
In 1960s Rome, a meeting between a free-spirited young woman who grew up in her family's circus and a girl of wealthy descent leads to secrets, intrigue, and unexpected loves.