Summer of 1893. A famous criminologist, a medium, a slightly odd young peasant, a mysterious assassin…

For the first time, a noir intrigue surrounds the exhilarating and picturesque world of Bellano on the shores of Lake Como, turning the clocks back to the beginnings of psychiatry and modern criminology.

Serpe and Arcadio’s third daughter is called Birce, and she was born crooked. She has a mark on her left cheek and at times she says and does strange things. Who would want a girl like that? Who would even employ her as a house slave? It is the month of August 1893 and for the couple, who work at the rectorate of the Bellano sanctuary, the perfect opportunity has finally arisen. Giuditta Carvasana, a pious woman who has just moved to the region, has every intention of doing good deeds such as, for example, helping a young girl with no future. This would be no small victory for Birce, for whom life does not seem to hold a happy destiny. Just like the poor florist in Via Torino who was massacred in the middle of the road. Truth be said, she was not the first victim during that summer long ago. Their bodies are available to be viewed in the anatomic room of the famous alienist Cesare Lombroso, who analyses them carefully, convinced that medicine might provide some help to the enquiry. Furthermore, a piece of paper covered in undecipherable mathematical signs turns up in the pockets of the two poor victims. Do they point to a link between the deaths? And could it be that Lombroso himself has become a target, having previously received a similar piece of paper from an anonymous sender? Scientific rigorousness will not suffice to solve this mystery. There is a possibility, muses Lombroso, that spiritism might help. However, only people out of the ordinary know how to practice spiritism… A bit like Birce, with her mark, who sometimes says and does strange things…