Il delitto della Madonna di Fossalto. Un’indagine del maresciallo Arturo Bonomi

A small town in the Lower Po Valley is the setting of a string of misdemeanors: Lambrusco, the village drunk and ex-partisan, ends up with his head smashed; his old friend Arturo Bonomi (mustachioed and bittersweet marshal of the Carabinieri) and Alessandro Peruzzi (perfectionist coroner) are investigating the case, helped by a hotchpotch of officers and passerbys, some hopelessly clumsy, others more smart. The story, set in the 1960s, unfolds between memories of World War II and the memory of a vanished peasant world all under the gaze of a small statue of the Madonna near which Lambrusco’s lifeless body was found. Reconstructing the story of his life and of their friendship, Bonomi recalls invading troops and alleged allies going treasure hunting during the War. Was Lambrusco killed for that phantom treasure? Or is there some other secret in his life that no one knows about? The solution will come only by listening to the stories of the inhabitants of that small town, made up of thugs and informers which (according to their beliefs) swear against God or become newborn Catholics; former fascists adn communists, con men, fickle former partisans prisoners of war, bullies, busybodies and teachers. As it has always been, all over the world.