It's election time again in our small town that could be anywhere but is in fact among the dying olive groves of Puglia. Everything is about to kick off. Lines are being drawn, 'us' and 'them' are taking their positions, and alliances are being made in the shake of a hand, the wink of an eye or over the chink of an espresso cup in the bar on the piazza. The 'hopliticians' are massing in their phalanxes once again.

This scorching political satire by one of Italy's most thrilling new writers is a choral novel that follows the personal and public vicissitudes of a cast of wannabe politicos and absurd party factions, as they scrabble for power with the lesson of that great Italian masterpiece The Leopard apparently foremost in their minds: for things to remain the same - for power to stay in place - everything must change.