Andrea Avagliano

When the most important friend in her life seems to have disappeared without a trace, Elena Greco, a now-elderly woman immersed in a house full of books, turns on her computer and starts writing the story of their friendship.

Ottavio Camaldoli is a professor of Latin and Greek. An honest and gentleman, he is considered a "fool" by everyone around him. But what would happen if this defenseless man, a victim of petty daily abuses in his social life, at work, and even at home, were to receive another man's heart transplant? Especially if this other man, the donor, were a brutal criminal with the sinister nickname of "O Barbiere" (The Barber)? Would Ottavio Camaldoli, after inheriting the heart, automatically become a criminal? Science tells us that these are just silly, ancient beliefs. But what if Donna Carmela, the Barber's ruthless mother, were convinced that her son is still alive thanks to the heart now beating in the professor's chest?

The story centers around the mysterious death of sixty-eight-year-old Dr. Dieter Frisch, a wealthy industrialist and chess master, living outside Vienna. Having returned from his office in Munich on Friday evening, he was discovered on Sunday morning in the orchard of his estate, at the center of a concentric maze, built in the shape of a chess board. Dr Frisch was found lying in a pool of his own blood, with his antique silver pistol several feet from the body. There was no suicide note, but a primitive chess set was found by police, in Dr Frisch's study, set up at a complicated middle-game position.