During a bungled robbery attempt, Raffaello Beggiato takes a young woman and her eight-year-old child hostage. He later murders both in cold blood. Beggiato is arrested, tried, and sentenced to life. Undone by his loss, the victims' father and husband, Silvano Contin, plunges into an ever-deepening abyss until the day, fifteen years later, when the murderer seeks his pardon. The wounded Silvano turns predator as he ruthlessly plots his revenge.

A riveting story of guilt, revenge, and justice, Massimo Carlotto's Death's Dark Abyss tells the tale of two men and the savage crime that irreversibly binds them. Two dramatic stories meet in this stylish, passionate indictment of a legal system that seems powerless both to compensate victims and to rehabilitate perpetrators.