?We are all outside the law, just some of us are further out than others.? The words uttered by Laconto?s stepfather, echo through the detective?s mind as he tries to come to terms with his reality as a police inspector with a past, he does not want to discuss. He?d graduated the academy with ideals buoyed by innocence, only to have them crushed by policing a quasi-dystopian state, ruled by Mafiosi. ?Just some are further out than others,? bouncing about his cranium, a bat trapped in his one-room apartment.Like Laconto, Welch is a cop, but she is also a listener. She encourages the inspector to break down his walls. Beguiled by her charms, Laconto recounts his journey from fledgling with a dream of crushing organized crime, to Senior Investigator in the Anti-Mafia Directorate. Welch hears about a transvestite mugger, his lover, and two bent cops, all being manipulated by an unscrupulous Secret Service Agent. Pippo, dealt a heavy hand, rebels against the institutions there to nurture him. He turns to petty crime, which leads to a term in a Detention Centre, where he meets and falls in love with a like-minded boy. They become soulmates. Back on the outside, they cross a local boss and young love is torn apart by murder and a return to prison.Subdolo and Colino are on the payroll of the local Mafia. They have no scruples and see Laconto as a threat to their status quo. Nicknamed, Thomson and Thompson, the inept detectives continually fail to suppress Laconto?s Boy Scout tendencies.Spione is on a mission. An agent on the Secret Service Mafia desk, he wants to crush organized crime. Unlike Laconto, Spione will do anything to achieve his goals. Investigating a Mafia hit, he comes face-to-face with the detective. Convinced that Laconto is bent, he sets out to destroy him.The protagonists go head-to-head under the shadow of Vesuvius. Much like the volcano, the pressure is likely to cause more than one eruption. When the eruptions occur, the consequences are dire and wrench the heart strings of all those who have any.