Primo Verona, a professional magician & soothsayer, is born with a gift of clairvoyance so strong that he is able to predict his own mother's death while still in her womb. He is brought up on a rich diet of astronomy, philosophy & storytelling by his watchmaker father & widowed aunt, both survivors of the death camps in Auschwitz. Primo accurately reads the futures of the local Long Street community of Italians & Jews, who pay him in wads of money, honey cake, tiramisu & other delicacies.
Pasquale Benvenuto, his close friend since childhood & fellow soldier in the Angolan war, is the owner of a bar & delicatessen favoured by local businessmen & gamblers alike. Pasquale is passionate & headstrong, his culinary reputation resting on the recipes for the fruited breads & salamis his father taught him to make