Le strade oscure

In this new noir adventure, private investigator Elia Contini has to act within the shady world of border workers between Italy and Switzerland, in a borderland where not only a terrible murder has taken place, but where an incident of oppression and a scandal linked to the exploitation of workers also develops.

Every morning at dawn, men and women cross the border between Italy and Switzerland to go to work. They’re called frontalieri – border workers – and there are tens of thousands of them. One of them is Ernesto Magni. All goes well in the beginning, but then, between being fired and getting a divorce, his life takes a turn for the worse until one morning, on the train, he is robbed of his wallet. Ernesto is distressed, even though no one understands why. What did the wallet contain that was so valuable? Ernesto doesn’t tell anyone anything, but he is clearly frightened. He turns to Elia Contini, a small private investigator. What looked like an easy investigation, almost a formality to reassure Ernesto, soon turns into a nightmare. Ernesto is violently murdered and a whole a scandal involving the exploitation of workers slowly comes to light. Contini has to act in the world of border workers and entrepreneurs, and discovers that even nowadays, like throughout the history of humanity, a border sparks uncertainty, chaos and violence.