In mid-1988, a book was published in Italy that made a lot of noise: an anonymous author offered readers a literary record of the memoirs of an unknown mafioso named Giovanni. The police began to search for the author of the book and its hero. The effect was unexpected: the author turned out to be a famous writer, master of the detective genre Enzo Russo, the hero of the book was a fictional character, a fruit of writer's imagination. Before us is a detective novel, but at the same time the fruit of a thorough long-term study by the writer of documents about the mafia. This is a truly artistic work, a biographical novel that reveals the personality, character of the mafioso Giovanni, his psychology.