The day gets off to a bad start: trying to break up a fight on Marinella beach, Montalbano hits the wrong man and is stopped by the Carabinieri. At the office, the inspector learns about a strange abduction: a woman was abducted, drugged, and then released unharmed a few hours later. A few days later, the same thing happens again. The only link: both women are thirty years old and work in a bank. Then there's the arson case that seems trivial: a shop that sells household appliances has burned down, and its owner, Marcello Di Carlo, seems to have vanished into thin air. A third abduction-- another woman who works in a bank-- and the discovery of a body bring up new questions.