A Mapuche woman in Buenos Aires tries to solve a friend's murder in this Prix Landerneau–winning crime novel by the acclaimed French author of Zulu.

Twenty-eight-year-old Jana is a Mapuche, one of those indigenous "people of the earth" who were dispossessed when the Argentinean constitution turned them into outlaws overnight. A survivor of the Dirty War, Jana is now sculptor of a rare talent. But to make ends meet, she must also prostitute herself down at the docks. Her best friend, Miguel, a.k.a. Paula, is a transvestite who also works the docks. Jana and Miguel are connected, as if by a blood bond—so when Miguel disappears, it shatters Jana's fragile world.

Then the body of a transvestite is found emasculated at an abandoned port, La Boca. Jana turns to private investigator Rubén Calderón for help and protection. After serving time following the coup d'état of March 24, 1976, Calderón has been searching for any trace of los desaparecidos—the disappeared—and their odious tormentors. Together, Jana and Rubén will plunge into the corrupt heart of the Argentinean political system on a hunt for a vicious murderer.