In this Nicaraguan noir (the first in The Managua Trilogy), Inspector Dolores Morales and Deputy Inspector Bert Dixon "¬‚¬" former Sandinista guerilla fighters now attached to the Narcotics Unit of the National Police "¬‚¬" investigate the disappearance of a young woman after the discovery of an abandoned yacht and a wedding dress. As the mystery widens the two inspectors and their ad-hoc team are brought face to face with drug smugglers from the Cali and Sinaloa cartels. With tension and irony, Sergio Ramirez (A Thousand Deaths Plus One; Divine Punishment) portrays an unsettled and impoverished Central American country struggling in the 1990s to retain the shreds of its revolutionary ideals. Translated by Leland H. Chambers (with Bruce McPherson)