During Granada's spectacular Easter processions, Sub-Inspector Max Romero has a visitor, his sister, Susanna. She is preparing a T.V. programme on San Juan de la Cruz, Spain's sixteenth century mystic poet.
In the ruins of San Juan's monastery on the Alhambra hill, they meet a charismatic environmentalist, Francisco Yepes, who later that day finds the body of a gypsy guitarist in a cave. The body is that of Paco, an ex-con who had helped Max in a previous case. Paco's death leads Max deep into the gypsy community of Sacromonte, and into another major conflict with Inspector Ernesto Navarro.
The investigation into Paco's death begins to unravel a major property speculation involving the development of the beautiful Sacromonte valley below the Alhambra, a speculation involving laundered drug money, town hall corruption, and Opus Dei. Characters from "Blood Wedding" re-appear, and Max's new investigation takes him deep into the politics of urban corruption in Spain and Granada. But even there, the dead reach out to touch the living.
