In fascist Italy in 1927, Detective Francesco Ingravallo, known to friends as Don Ciccio, is called in to investigate the murder of Liliana Balducci, a well-to-do woman who happens to be a close friend. As Don Ciccio and his colleagues dig deeper into the grisly murder, the mechanics of the detective novel take a backseat to the wordplay and experimentation with which Gadda presents a panorama of life in early fascist Rome.