A strikingly beautiful young woman is found dead in her Florence apartment. She lays on her bed, naked, a black rose between her legs. And the murders do not stop there: shortly afterwards, a woman is burned to death in a church, and a man is shot on the Ponte Vecchio. Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara is all too familiar with the dark side of Florence. But he has never seen anything of this magnitude before - he is up against a mysterious, powerful enemy who would do anything to hide his identity, and manages to control events at every turn. As more violent deaths occur, Ferrara has to face the most dangerous investigation in his entire career and must confront deadly secrets from his own past.