On the edge of the city a crumbling apartment block is a heaving anthill of thwarted ambitions and clashing egos. In the basement lives the janitor, Tommaso, a former journalist who has taken a less demanding job. His duties are light and he has the leisure to satisfy his curiosity about the inhabitants of this teetering Italian microcosm. Through him we get to know them all the pedlars and the ponces, the florid housewives, the wannabes and the has-beens. We also get to know the janitor s friend, a blind photographer. Being blind, he is asked to take the pictures at a high-society orgy but he fails to turn in the last reel of the film. Not long afterwards he is killed in a neatly-orchestrated traffic accident. Bufalino s short novel, filled with wit and observation, is an engaging mixture of love story, murder mystery and parody.