Wars end.
Hate lasts forever.
Hatred harbored for years had driven a man to litter a city with bombs.
Hatred had driven another to detonate them

.
The consequences of that insane game that is war provide the ideal backdrop for a thriller.
The novel’s premise is the return of a Vietnam veteran, surviving yet monstrously disfigured by napalm, the incendiary weapon widely used by the Americans during the war.
As one would say today in polite terms, it was "friendly fire" that reduced the man to the horrific state in which he finds himself: taken prisoner by the Viet Cong and used as a human shield, he was struck by units of his own army, despite their having clearly recognized him.
Hatred and vengeance are unleashed against his own fellow citizens, as he confides to his only friend:

I believe it would take the lives of many men to feel the pain I felt in those few months in the hospital

.
Many years must pass until a series of explosions strikes New York, claiming numerous victims.
The investigation is assigned to a young detective, Vivien, who is partnered with Russell, a failed writer from a wealthy family who has come into possession of information crucial to identifying the culprit.
As is typical in thrillers, the novel unfolds along two parallel narrative threads: the unraveling of the police investigation, full of plot twists and intricate developments, and the personal lives of the two protagonists, who ultimately fall in love.
Among the story’s many offshoots, there is also a priest who reportedly took the killer's confession regarding the murders: the conditional mood is necessary here, as this very confession is the novel's pivotal juncture, one that might allow an attentive reader (certainly not the undersigned, who failed to grasp it) to deduce the killer's identity.

The novel is undoubtedly the finest Faletti has written: the story is well-constructed, the plot rich with incidents and characters that nonetheless weave smoothly into the overarching narrative.
The prose is even and composed, simple yet effective at the same time.
If a criticism must be made, it concerns the novel’s finale, which, as is often the case with thrillers, is insufficiently developed and arrives devoid of tension and suspense.
Perhaps the author should have devoted greater care to the conclusion, even at the expense of trimming some of the book’s redundant passages.

Why read it? It reads exceedingly well, and the narrative commands the reader's attention.

I am god