The year is 1990, and Montalbano is deputy inspector in a remote village in the Sicilian mountains. A local thug with a history of theft is murdered and the evidence points to an elderly shepherd as the killer. In the meantime Montalbano is promoted to inspector and transferred to the seaside town of Vigàta, where he grew up. There he stumbles upon a piece of evidence that solves the case in the mountains, and also unravels the mystery of why a girl attempted to murder a judge.