On the evening of March 10 1948 the Secretary of the Corleone Trade Union Headquarters, Placido Rizzotto, disappears. By a strange twist of fate at the time of his disappearance some young men converge and become important in Italian contemporary history for various reasons: the captain of the carabinieri Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, who carried out the investigation and arrested Rizzotto's murderers; the young university student Pio La Torre, who took over from Rizzotto; and, on the other side, Luciano Liggio, Rizzotto's murderer and his gang members, who went on to become Mafia bosses.