Corso Bramard lives in the mountains not far outside Turin. A former police inspector , for twenty years he has kept out of the public eye following the death of his wife and daughter - both brutally murdered by a serial killer. Periodically, the murderer sends Bramard letters containing snippets of song lyrics by Leonard Cohen, a cruel taunt and a dare. Bramard keeps them all, and spends his days haunted by his twin obsessions: to find the man who destroyed his life, and to end his own life altogether. Until one day he receives the killer's latest missive, and everything changes; the murderer may have made a mistake, and given Bramard a vital clue to begin the manhunt. Aided by his former colleagues and by Isa, an unlikely cop with her unorthodox style of speech and dress, Corso gets back onto the killer's trail.