In sparse prose that echoes the files of a police report, Maraini gives an elegant, resounding voice to the string of victims who receive only too fleeting mention in the media each day. Among them is 12-year-old Viollca, an Albanian immigrant sold into prostitution by her parents through financial desperation; Tano, a boy who brings charges of physical abuse against his father and is only believed two years and the death of his brother later. Linking the collection together is steel nerved, yet tender-hearted Adele-Sofia, a police commissioner working in the underbelly of Rome.