Siena, one of Italy's most beautiful cities, visited by all discerning travellers to Tuscany, is feverishly preparing for the Palio, a horse race dating back to the Middle Ages held every summer in the centre of the town. Milanese lawyer Enzo Maggione and his wife Valeria are unwittingly caught up in the maelstrom of plots, counterplots and bribes surrounding the race. They are even witnesses to the violent death of Puddu, the Palio's most celebrated jockey, found dead the day before the race. A murder mystery, a hilarious portrait of a fading marriage and a decadent society, and a history of the Palio all rolled up into one brilliant novel. What begins as a listless excursion to a medieval equestrian competition turns into a hallucinatory nightmare for Maggione and his wife, awakening their dormant libido for each other but, more dangerously, for others in their entourage.

The death of the jockey is only one of the mysterious goings-on to be solved. It soon becomes clear that there are no bystanders in the Palio.