Set in Milan in 1992, this short novel follows a small team of journalists hired to produce trial issues of a newspaper that may never be published. Colonna, a down-at-heel writer, joins the project and watches his colleagues turn insinuation, rumour and half-truths into news.
One of them also begins to suspect a hidden story from Italy's recent past. A brisk satire of the press and conspiracy thinking, it was Eco's last novel.