The day gets off to a bad start for Inspector Montalbano: while trying to break up a fight on Marinella beach, he hits the wrong man and is taken in by the Carabinieri. When he finally gets to the office, he learns about a strange abduction -- a woman was kidnapped, drugged, and then released unharmed only hours later. Within a few days, the same thing happens again. Both women are thirty years old and work in a bank. Montalbano also must deal with an arson case. A shop has burned down, and its owner, Marcello Di Carlo, has vanished into thin air. This seems like a trivial incident, but a third abduction -- yet again of a girl who works in a bank -- and the discovery of a body bring up new questions.