Francesca, an Italian-American writer who lives in New York, must return to Rome to retrieve her aging mother. There, the ghosts of her childhood will come to her through her mother's art.

Placed in a small seaside area north of Rome, of late popular with the intelligentsia and artists, La Lunga Ombra provides a portrait of 3 professional women under the hidden duress of post 9-11 Italy, and more broadly, Europe.

Eddy is the detective of a general store. His girl is Barbara who works in the same store. Barbara receives a gift, a bottle of scent, and later she dies burned. Police detective Turoni begins to investigate and Eddy, wanting to revenge Barbara, does the same. Another girl, Porzia, is murdered in the same way and Eddy finds out that the motive of the crimes dates back some fifteen years.