His first impulse is a dormant interest in his dog. The animal suffers, falls into a coma, lies almost lifeless and yet alive. As if waiting for the solution of the mystery, she does not wake up and makes him, in a fit of love, patiently and calmly stay for hours in the waiting room of the veterinary clinic, watching those around him, putting his thoughts and his life in order. The prisoner, nicknamed Queequeg, like another whaling harpooner Piccod in Moby Dick, will harpoon him with a note and ask him to visit him in prison, to help him as a bibliotherapist. This will turn out to be the myth of Ariadne.

An unimaginable tangle of intrigues, crime, paranoia unfolds methodically and quickly. Corso will take over one night to find out the truth, to see the mechanisms leading to crime, to be in danger, but also to escape. How much distortion of the soul, how much cruelty of feelings, how much lack of life’s ballast can a blind person hide? And can eyes that do not see see nothing at all? Do they also close the eyes of conscience and create an alibi for a life without limits, leaving only a trace, a star behind the ear of each victim?

A cinematic writing that constantly creates images as the hero wanders in and out of Rome, introducing us to interesting walks, monuments, squares, temples, a prison, a non-Catholic cemetery. And a series of books designed to heal, not just help. “Oedipus the Tyrant”, “Crime and Punishment”, “The Stranger”, “The Chronicle of the Foretold Death” to read and reread. The power of a word. Which sometimes seems so comforting that you can let go of yourself, and sometimes so harsh that it nails failures, shortcomings, any inner dryness.