Montalbano decides not to close the case, but investigates further. In the Mánnara, an abandoned industrial site that serves as a dump and a hangout for sex workers, two sweepers find the barely clothed body of the Sicilian politician Luparello in his car he had apparently dead died from a heart attack that in compromising circumstances with a prostitute. This ends the planned marriage of Montalbano/Livia. Montalbano and Livia go to the home Francois (their potential adoptee) has been living, to be safe, and learn that Francois does not want to leave with them and be adopted by them because he has become so attached to the temporary family and their children. He discovers that Michela's lover was an antiques dealer from Bologna who is in financial difficulties because of his gambling problem.

Montalbano questions Michela's husband and her closest friend, Anna, a local school teacher, who takes a fancy to Montalbano. It turns out that she had owned a priceless Guarnieri del Gesù violin. Michela has been strangled during sex near her body is a violin case. The episode opens with Montalbano's discovery, in an abandoned villa, of the naked body of Michela Licalzi, a young woman who was married to a wealthy and complaisant older man. Montalbano decides it is time to propose to Livia so they can adopt and jointly raise Francois. Montalbano continues with his investigation finds that Kherima had been mixed up in international intrigue with the knowledge of the Italian secret services represented by the figure of Colonel Lohengrin Pera. Montalbano brings François to his home, where Montalbano's girlfriend Livia looks after him she wants to adopt the child. Montalbano discovers that the boy has survived on his own for several days by stealing snacks from other children at his school. Kherima is pursued by gangsters and ultimately murdered, but helps her son escape. Under questioning, the victim's widow bitterly accuses her husband's mistress, a beautiful Tunisian woman named Kherima, who vanished on the day of the murder, taking with her François, her six-year-old son. Salvo Montalbano investigates the murder of Lapecora, a middle-aged accountant, found stabbed in the back in the lift of the building where he lived.

Inspector montalbano the terracotta dog