Lt. Silva and his assistant, Lituma, also the protagonist in Llosa's Death in Andes, is investigating the death of Palomino Molero, an airforce cadet in an airbase near Talara. The young man was brutally murdered, hung and impaled on a Carob tree. The plot thickens when the airforce colonel, Col. Mindreu, his daughter, Alicia, and Alicia's boyfriend, Lt. Dufo, were somehow connected with the case. Apparently, Alicia's real boyfriend was Palomino.
With Llosa's wry humor, wit, and dash of social commentary, this novel is such a treat.