The goats of Vigata once grazed on the trash-strewn site still known as the Pasture. Now local enterprise of a different sort flourishes: drug dealers & prostitutes of every flavour. But their discreet trade is upset when two employees of the Splendour Refuse Collection Company discover the body of engineer Silvio Luparello one of the local movers & shakers apparently deceased in flagrante at the Pasture. The coroner's verdict is death from natural causes
- refreshingly unusual for Sicily. But Inspector Salvo Montalbano as honest as he is streetwise & as scathing to fools & villains as he is compassionate to their victims is not ready to close the case
- even though he's being pressured by Vigata's police chief judge & bishop. Picking his way through a labyrinth of high-comedy corruption delicious meals vendetta firepower & carefully planted false clues Montalbano can be relied on whatever the cost to get to the heart of the matter.