A meticulous killer is on the loose in a freezing Milan in January. Disturbingly, his brutal murders follow careful rituals inspired by the medical world: one man is stabbed with a scalpel; another is found bleeding to death, surrounded by bags containing his own blood. Next to each of them, the inevitable mark of the serial killer: a black and white photo of a rare species of rose. As soon as the UACV team starts in on the case, Mandelli and Casalegno get swept up in another investigation: someone very powerful wants to see an old cold case reopened, and it’s handed to them, the two best investigators out there. Between Milan and the val di Fassa, the two cases run parallel, and while the team gets closer and closer to cracking the first, Mandelli and Casalegno discover shocking truths about a series of killings that took place ten years earlier.

Gian Andrea Cerone, born in Savona but a long-time Milan resident, has worked in communications, traditional publishing, television, and all things digital. He was in charge of institutional relations at the Ministry of Economic Development and the 2015 EXPO. In 2018, he founded the editorial platform of podcasts called Storielibere. In 2022, Guanda published his first novel, Le notti senza sonno, the first of four in a series that follows the investigative squad of the Violent Crime Analysis Unit of Milan. It was shortlisted for the Scerbanenco Award and won the Franco Fedeli Award for crime stories. His more recent titles are Il trattamento del silenzio (2023) and Le conseguenze del male (2024).