The story of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy living in Bologna, Italy, who in 1858, after being secretly baptized, was forcibly taken from his family to be raised as a Christian. His parents’ struggle to free their son became part of a larger political battle that pitted the papacy against forces of democracy and Italian unification.

In the '80s, a teenage nerd notices sinister parallels between the story of his favorite comic book and the real life horrors befalling the small town where he lives. He and a few friends seek to investigate.