Leonardo Morandi, a Franco-Italian smuggler, is found dead in the Alps. His face is disfigured, and identifying the victim is difficult, at first: the only clue is a receipt from a shop in Bardonecchia for the purchase of a rather expensive down jacket that can withstand the intense cold. His body is found by a French hiker, Jean Pelissier. In the meantime, a young burkinabé who is oddly trying to cross back into Italy after finally realizing his dream of making it across the border, is found half-frozen at a high altitude. He will explain that his group was hunted and captured by the French border forces waiting for him, very likely after having been tipped off. The investigation conducted by a police inspector in Lyon uncovers a large-scale smuggling operation of cigarettes from Albania, but there’s more: in parallel, the main business is none other than human trafficking. To connect all the dots and solve the case of what is going on the Alpine border between Italy and France is not an easy job, and the police forces of both countries will be forced to collaborate, even though surprises are in store on both sides of the border.

Michèle Pedinielli, born in Nice but with roots in Italy and Corsica, was a journalist for fifteen years. She currently contributes to the website retronews.fr and to books about history and the BNF, as well as the podcast Séries noires à la Une. Her first novel, Boccanera, was awarded the 2019 Lion Noir at the Festival of Crime Novels in Neuilly-Plaisance. In May 2019, she published Après les chiens, a new case handled by Ghjulia Boccanera. This was followed by La patience de l’immortelle (Special Jury Prize at Évêché 2022), Sans collier (2023), and Un seul œil (2025).

Valerio Varesi was born in Turin, lives in Parma, and works at the Bologna office of la Repubblica. An eclectic novelist, he created Inspector Soneri, protagonist of crime novels that inspired the three seasons of the TV series Fog and Crimes, starring Luca Barbareschi. His Inspector Soneri novels have been translated around the world, and the installment È solo l’inizio won the special hundredth-anniversary edition of the Giorgio Scerbanenco Award in 2011. Varesi has also authored a personal overview of history, La presenza e Il rivoluzionario, published by Frassinelli, which the sequel, Lo stato di ebbrezza, brings up to the present day. His novel Il labirinto di ghiaccio was published by Mondadori in 2023.

Il confine della vergogna grew out of a partnering between Pedinielli and Varesi, based on an idea hatched by the Quais du Polar Festival and Edizioni Points, for a campaign spotlighting Lyon and Milan as UNESCO Creative Cities of Literature. This is a case of collaborative writing, in the manner of “excellent cadavers”, in which the two authors took turns writing the chapters, and the main characters hint at the cultural differences between the two countries, in a reciprocal effort to raise awareness of each of them.