At first glance, Private Detective Giorgia Cantini is not a pretty sight as she sits at a bar, downing her fourth cocktail of the night, feeling moody and obnoxious. Brutally honest, she smokes too much, exercises too little, eats on the run, and — the cardinal sin for Italian women — is a messy housekeeper. Yet, despite all that, people trust her and are attracted to her as a confidant. Her stream of unhappy clients comes from the conventional middle-class and upper-middle-class confines of Bolognese families. While the Cantini Detective Agency mostly investigates the tangled affairs of unhappily married couples, Verasani exposes the hierarchies and prejudices of Italian “family culture” that often lead to tragic acts of violence against those who stray from domestic and sexual norms.