Siena, one of Italy's most beautiful cities, is feverishly preparing for the Palio, a horse race dating back to the Middle Ages, held every summer in the centre of the town. Tempers flare, rivalries between the competing neighbourhoods intensify. Milanese lawyer Enzo Maggione and his wife Valeria are unwittingly caught up in the death of a jockey and a maelstrom of plots, counterplots and bribes surrounding the race.

Carlo Fruttero (1926-2012) and Franco Lucentini (1920-2002) are legendary authors in Europe, known as pioneers of the modern crime genre. Runaway Horses and The Lover of No Fixed Abode are two of six works of fiction they wrote together and have never been available in English before.