The Carnival of Shadows

In the sun-scorched city of Santa Brigida, Vespera, the annual Carnevale has always been a release from the monotony of bureaucratic life. But when an administrative judge from the Social Provision Appeals Tribunal is found ritually dismembered amid a sea of discarded masks and social security files, Inspector Matteo Corsini is drawn into an investigation that defies logic. No single killer exists. The forensic evidence points to dozens of citizens acting in unison, as if possessed by a single, dark will. Haunted by a prior challenge to the judge’s appointment brought by a claimant named Celio Dobrescu—a challenge dismissed on procedural grounds—Corsini begins to trace the contours of a crime that is not an act of individual malice, but a collective awakening of an ancient, demonic shadow. As the line between observer and participant blurs, every criminal profile he constructs feels less like identifying a murderer and more like sketching the silhouette where God’s light has been deliberately withdrawn.