THE BOOK - Erik Vessel, owner of a high-class and widely known firm of auctioneers in New York, by now fees quite safe. The "valuable" secret he shares with Nick Kartize, producer of hard core films, also appears to belong to a life which is very distant and very different from the new one they have made for themselves in the United States, far away from Germany and Italy and from a past which is best forgotten.
But it is not always true that the passing of time is the best way for forgetting and being forgotten. Erik Vessell has had to realize this that saturday dawn in september 1989. Without warning, it was as though the past returned and demandedd that he and his comrade settle a long outstanding account. Without warning, the unrelenting curtain was going up on the last act of a drama which had begun many years before.
With a cast of characters who are capable of arousing our interest, sympathy, love or hate, the fascinating story unwinds from New York to Siena, from Los Angeles to London, to Florence, to Frankfurt, against the enchanting background of the Chianti hills and amidst the rugged scenery of the Island of Elba or the desert sands of Egypt, that land full of mysteries. A tale in which adventure, murder, espionage, love and death amalgamete to form a gripping fresco of life which stretches from the Second World War to the present day in a quick succession of sensational coups de théâthre right up to the lasta page. A young warrant officer of the Carabinieri stationed at Siena and a retired lieutenant of the Homicide Squad of the New York police are the ones to solve one of the most knotty secret: a secret of one hundred billion dollars.