The inspiration was a famous missing child case, unsolved to this day. A young English girl, Leah Martins is on holiday with her family on the coast of Romagna when she mysteriously disappears from her hotel room. Her disappearance, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. The investigation conducted by a shrewd Italian police detective, Alvaro Gerace, runs parallel to the unauthorized investigation by Peter McBride of Scotland Yard. The latter has a double agenda: bring the girl home, and also make up for his own violent childhood as a member of a Manchester gang. One after another, all conceivable witnesses are brutally murdered, as the two investigations become intertwined and blood continues to be spilled.

Stefano Tura (1961, Bologna), a journalist and special correspondent for RaiUno News, started reported on crime for the daily newspaper "Il Resto del Carlino." He covered the Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan as a war correspondent. He published his first novel in 2001: Il killer delle ballerine, a crime thriller steeped in the anything-goes atmosphere of the discotheques of Romagna's riviera and Rimini's night life. The novel marks the first appearance of reporter Luca Rambaldi and Inspector Alvaro Gerace. Tura's 2002 book, Le caramelle di Super Osama - Viaggio a Kandahar di un inviato di guerra, was a first-hand report on the war in Afghanistan. His second thriller, Non spegnere la luce, came out in 2003. The same year, his Arriveranno i fiori del sangue was shortlisted for the Fedeli and Scerbanenco prizes. Nearly ten years later, Tura returns to the mystery genre with Tu sei il prossimo.