Blackmail, British bank notes, genital mutilation, bisexual swingers and old hatreds, all play their role in the death of a retired German diplomat. In the peaceful Umbrian village of Paradiso, the shocking murder and mutilation of the elderly Jarvinia Baudler is barely credible. That is, until Commissario Alessandro Cenni of the State Police discovers that this retired cultural attaché was not just a blackmailer but a bisexual swinger with an African lover recently in residence. The dead woman grew up in occupied Venice, and some of her secrets may have been acquired that long ago, during World War II. And the bucolic village is not that innocent: It was the site of a famous, scandalous murder fifty years earlier.
Cenni's boss wants a scapegoat, and the young African is the obvious target, but Cenni cannot bring himself to close a case without solving the crime and bringing the actual perpetrator to justice.

Not every paradise is without its snakes.