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 Rub n Calder n for help and protection. After serving time following the coup d' tat of March 24, 1976, Calder n has been searching for any trace of los desaparecidos--the disappeared--and their odious tormentors.
Together, Jana and Rub n will plunge into the corrupt heart of the Argentinean political system on a hunt for a vicious murderer.