Commissario Soneri returns home for a hard-earned autumn holiday hoping to spend a few days mushroom picking on the slopes of Montelupo. This isolated village relies on the salame factory founded in the post-war years by Palmiro Rodolfi & now run by his son Paride. On arrival Soneri is greeted by anxious rumours about the factory's solvency & the younger Rodolfi's whereabouts. Not long afterwards a decomposing body is found in the woods. In the shadow of Montelupo carabinieri prepare to apprehend their chief suspect
- an ageing woodsman who defended the same mountains from S.S. commandos during the war.