In a quiet village surrounded by centuries-old woods and the imposing Italian Alps, a series of violent assaults take place.    

Police inspector and profiler Teresa Battaglia is called back from the city when the first body is found in the woods, a naked man whose face has been disfigured and eyes gouged out. Teresa quickly realises that the killer intends to strike again, and soon more victims are found - all having been subjected to horrendous mutilations. When a newborn baby is kidnapped, Teresa's investigation becomes a race against the clock.... 

But Teresa is also fighting a different kind of battle: a battle against her own body, weighed down by age and diabetes, and her mind, once invincible and now slowly gnawing away at her memory.... 

'Something devastating has taken place here in these mountains. Something that requires all my investigative abilities. My name is Teresa Battaglia, I am a police chief inspector, specialised in profiling, and I walk through hell every day. It's not my gun, nor my uniform: my real weapon is my mind.    

'Yet my mind is failing me. Not my body, weathered by the passing of time, nor my tormented heart.    

'My name is Teresa Battaglia, I have a secret that I dare not reveal even to myself, and for the first time in my life I am afraid.'