Marco Morellini
Rimini, 1991. For more than a year, the uno bianca gang - they always use a white Fiat Uno - has plagued the area. Their crimes are violent, sometimes killing carabineri, and there's no particular pattern: a bank one day, a petrol station the next, extortion of a small business the next. Are they terrorists? A foreign gang? Tied to the Mafia? After a particularly bloody shootout, two detectives are assigned to start fresh: they go through the notebooks of previous investigators and they interview a few witnesses again. They find a pattern in the crimes and predict the next assault, but the special task force in Bologna is dismissive. Can they carry on alone; how far will they get?
The Roman Catholic Pope is planning a reconciliatory meeting with the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, an event awaited for many generations. But suddenly, right while the Pope is addressing the crowds gathered in the Piazza Navone, a nun is assassinated by a Ukrainian, placing the upcoming talks between the two leaders in jeopardy. And the head of the American diplomatic corps (the nun was an American) assigns the investigation of the killing to one of his underlings, which leads the young man to investigate the Russicum, a center for the study of Russia within the Vatican city. And from there he finds himself caught up in an intrigue of international proportions, filled with agents and double agents, and ending with a revelation most unexpected.
