Umberto Eco

Franciscan friar, William of Baskerville, tries to discover why people are dying inexplicably and nastily in the monastery. There is something not altogether right within the library that is the pride of the establishment...

It's 1992. Hack writer Colonna is offered a fee he can't refuse to ghostwrite a memoir. His subject, Braggadocio, is convinced that Mussolini's corpse was a body double and part of a wider Fascist plot. When a body is found stabbed to death in a back alley, even Colonna is jolted out of his complacency.

Nineteenth-century Europe abounds with conspiracy both ghastly and mysterious. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. French criminals plan bombings by day and celebrate black masses by night. Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating forgeries, plots, and massacres. But what if, behind all of these conspiracies, lies just one man...

Lorenzo and Lucia, both from peasant families, are planning their wedding. However, after meeting the villainous Don Rodrigo, the couple are forced to flee their village. Their dangerous journey in exile takes them through one of the most dramatic eras in Italian history, filled with war, famine and plague. Will they ever be able to find happiness together?