The only finalist in Latin America for the Distel Verlag Internacional Prize 1998, with this work the author inaugurates a series of detective novels that has converted him in a short time into one of the most distinguished voices of what is known internationally as the Latin American Neo-Detective genre. In order to rummage around on the outer edges of Cuban society, Alex Varga, a black man (a kind of unofficial mayor for the marginal neighborhoods of Havana), and Police Lieutenant Alain Bec form an enriching relationship that allows them disquieting plunges into crime as a means of survival in present-day Cuban society, even for the non-delinquent population. In this first novel, these two characters solve a horrifying case of child prostitution.