Outwardly they are the perfect couple: the 46-year-old Filippo with his large, smoke-grey eyes, member of one of Florence's most highly regarded patrician families, and the very young and completely inexperienced Francesca, as beautiful as a Leonardo da Vinci angel. Francesca believes that she has found the prince of her dreams, but as soon as they are married, Filippo seems to lose interest in her amongst his ever more frequent business trips to far-away London. Francesca feels she has been buried alive in their ancient Florentine house. After the birth of her son Cosimo, she falls into one depression after the other, and the only advice she receives from Filippo's family is that she should visit a sanatorium. Francesca loses faith in herself – after all, who else's fault can it be that her husband spends hardly any time in her presence? Then, one day, she makes a discovery that explains so much, but which only makes things all the more complicated.

Olivia Birkett, American ex-model and fashion designer, formerly married as Contessa Brunamonti, who, with iron discipline and a great deal of élan has not only succeeded in paying off the debts of her confidence trickster husband but also in gaining an established position in the Italian Alta moda with her own fashion collection, has been kidnapped. Naturally, Guarnaccia's boss claims the best part of the case for himself, and Marshal Guarnaccia is instructed to comfort the daughter and the despairing son of the abducted woman, who has been missing for several days, in the Brunamonti Palace. But there is information to be gained from the servants: namely, that the Contessa is nothing like as rich as the kidnappers believe, that all her money is tied up in her fashion company, and that the daughter is trying with unseemly haste to take her mother's place although the employees regard her as incapable of running a business.

We know that money alone does not make you happy, and that it can even be dangerous. But the fact that money cannot even prevent loneliness is something that an English art collector had to find out the hard way. Sara Hirsch appeals to Marshal Guarnaccia for help. She has the feeling that someone has been in her apartment. First of all she smelled it, and secondly, she found a kitchen knife in the hall in a place where she is sure she did not put it. Furthermore, the old lady received an anonymous postcard that began: »Now that we know where you live…« Guarnaccia suspects it is the work of an unscrupulous landlord who hopes to rid himself of a tiresome tenant so that he can put up the rent. He advises Mrs Hirsch to contact her lawyer and promises to come and see her the following day. Next day, however, Guarnaccia is called out to a break-in at a villa belonging to an English art collector called Sir Christopher. Although the only thing missing is a pair of silver hairbrushes, Guarnaccia's boss, Captain Maestrangelo, accompanies the Marshal to the scene of the crime. It is not long before Guarnaccia discovers why: the Captain hopes to catch a glimpse of the Monet painting in Sir Christopher's possession. Instead, the two men find a garden full of white flowers that develop their full scent only at twilight, a lily pond with goldfish and a statue that Guarnaccia believes to be a copy of the statue in the Boboli gardens. In fact, however, it is the original Roman statue from 200 BC. Guarnaccia is so busy with this new case that he almost forgets the elderly Mrs Hirsch. When he eventually visits her, he finds her dead in her apartment, and Guarnaccia suffers pangs of conscience.

Up at the villa, a well-known writer lies dead without a mark of violence on her. Her husband snores drunkenly nearby. Down in the city of Florence, Marshal Guarnaccia of the carabinieri has a suspect, but no specialized skill and no evidence. However, help comes from a forty-year-old repressed memory of a ragged child kneeling on grains of rice in the corner of the classroom: Vittorio, the son of the village prosititute, whose long-ago sufferings would lead the marshal to the solution of the mystery.

After all the years that Marshal Guarnaccia has commanded the Carabinieri Station housed in Florence's Pitti Palace, great paintings are as familiar a part of his life as the snarled-up traffic. Still, if he joins battle with a successful forger, it is only as a favour to an old friend - and because the man fascinates him. Then he is dragged into a last-ditch attempt to nail a serial killer, only to find himself faced with a forgery in his own line of business, where the issues prove distressingly familiar. Nobody wants to know the truth about a fake. And if a false case is made against the wrong man, who is going to admit it?

Guarnaccia is called in to handle a murder outside Florence. Signor Paoletti lives in an ostentatiously renovated country estate with his wife, two daughters, his illegitimate grandchild and two household staff members. The oldest daughter, Silvana, has been brutally murdered. For Paoletti, it is clear that it is a case of murder and robbery, but Guarnaccia notices that the details do not match up. With the help of the tabloid journalist Nesti, who still owes him a couple of favours, Guarnaccia finds out that Paoletti owes his fortune to a brief but highly lucrative career as a pimp. This puts Guarnaccia on the alert, of course, because Paoletti is now running a temporary job agency, which imports cheap labour from central and eastern Europe. On the surface, everything is correct: All of the placed cleaning women, gardeners and au pairs have valid passports and visas. But there is something else going on, and this looks entirely different. The case takes such dramatic turns that Guarnaccia submits his resignation from the police force for the first time in his career – to protect himself and his family.

The body of a woman has been found half submerged in an ornamental fish pond in Florence's Boboli Gardens high above the Pitti Palace where Marshal Guarnaccia of the caribinieri is stationed. At first, the woman cannot be identified; only her skull remains. The investigators must use her clothing and a single handmade leather shoe to trace her. She turns out to be a Japanese woman apprenticed to one of Florence's legendary custom shoemakers, crotchety old Peruzzi. Could he have killed his protégé? Or did jealousy drive his other apprentice to murder? The neighbours have seen the pretty woman with a handsome man. Who was he? And did a lovers' quarrel lead to murder? Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia, a Sicilian stationed in Florence, pursues his investigation in the city he now knows so well, questioning its citizens, whose characters and motivations he knows even better. It turns out that the Marshal must go to Rome to complete his investigation. When he returns to Florence he can identify the killer, but can he bring him to justice?