Teo is forty-years-old and a detective story writer. Every year he withdraws to the Greek island of Kefalonia to buff up his novels. There he befriends Petra, a bizarre tavern's owner, a sort of modern aedo who loves to tell his customers always new stories, halfway between truth and fiction. 

The day when, on his arrival to Kefalonia Teo learns that Petra is dead, he goes to the cemetery to greet his friend. On his way there his mind goes back to the last story Petra told him, the most mysterious and thrilling, and also the most authentic and exciting one. 

It's the start of a journey backwards along the paths of memory which, as if in an investigation by the inspector of his detective stories, will engage Teo relentlessly, pushing him to settle with a still unsolved existence as well as with the place that belongs to those who remain.

Reading along two tracks that intertwine and complement each other, we learn the story of Petra, his friendship with Damian, Damian's sudden death, the place Petra himself occupies beside the widow, Sofia, his acting as father of a child not of his own. 

We also learn the story of Teo who, while thinking of Petra's life, ends up rethinking his own's and moving on the fleeting line that separates past from present, where his beloved Greta has begun to take the absents' place.