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)