"At eighty, I foresaw Montalbano's departure from the scene, I got the idea and I didn't let it slip away. So I found myself writing this novel which is the final chapter; the last book in the series. And I sent it to my publisher saying to keep it in a drawer and to publish it only when I am gone." -Andrea Camilleri

Montalbano receives an early-morning phone call, but this time it's not Catarella announcing a murder, but a man called Riccardino who's dialed a wrong number and asks him when he'll be arriving at the meeting. Montalbano, in irritation, says: "In ten minutes." Shortly after, he gets another call, this one announcing the customary murder. A man has been shot and killed outside a bar in front of his three friends. It turns out to be the same man who called him.

Thus begins an intricate investigation further complicated by phone calls from "the Author" in tour de force of metafiction and Montalbano's last case.