Debby is too critical of the Italian way of life to make do with her husband's sexual problems. Paul, an Anglo-Italian reporter with a magazine in Rome, does his best to please her. He is well-meaning and intelligent, but a man also needs willpower and emotional stability, and he has got neither. He is a loser, and indeed when the discovery of a dead man in the boot of a car leads him to unearth the cover-up of a murder, he finds himself unable to win back his wife as well as file the outcome of his investigation for fear of endangering the life of his half-sister, Lelia, who was somewhat involved in the crime. Suspecting that Debby has an affair with a Bosnian, he has a go with another woman, but the weight of his past is too heavy, and they give up. He confides in Lelia, only to realize they have much to share...A palmist dubbed him "a powerful car on the road at night without headlights". Reminding himself of that metaphor, Paul takes the Via del Mare, driving against the traffic at high speed.