Summer 1963 in an Italian coastal village of the Adriatic. A luminous and bucolic microcosm in which three twelve-year-old friends – Damiano, Primo and Mimmo – spend the days, long and embarrassing, stationed in the square, sheltering in the shadow of the alleys or escaping into their favorite corner, a cliff with enviable sea views, a refuge to evade their parents and their problems and share their innocence , your dreams and secrets. Until one day, Mimmo has a run-in with a group of young bullies from the place. The three children then seal a blood pact: if any of them or their families suffer an affront, they will respond together, always together, with a retaliation proportional to the grievance. The events in that long, drowsy summer —the summer in which camaraderie and loyalties, grudges and revenges, fears and early loves are born—take an unexpected turn, and friends will be forced to fulfill their pact three times.

In an atmosphere saturated with beauty and violence, with a sober and evocative prose that propels history in a feverish crescendo, Mirko Sabatino tells us about fragility and brutality, how the darkest of nightmares can take root in the blinding heart of a dreamy summer.