When the mutilated body of Mayra Cabral de Melo, a well-known stripper, is found by the side of a dusty road, detective Edgar "Lefty" Mendieta has personal reasons for bringing the culprit to justice. Mayra had no shortage of ardent, deluded, and downright dangerous admirers, and Lefty himself is haunted by one steamy night he spent in her generous company. So begins an investigation that will bring him ever closer to the murderous world of the narcos, who are waging a war of bloody attrition against the Mexican state. The country is a powder keg, waiting for a spark, and Mendieta is about to enter the darkest days of his life. Corrupt politicians, failed boxers, and unscrupulous arms dealers all lie in wait along the path to justice. But none of this can prepare him for his run-in with the F.B.I., when the father of the President of the United States is attacked while on vacation in Mexico. For all these perils it is the weight of his own murky past that Lefty...

Elmer Mendoza "an important Mexican writer" (The Washington Post) returns with Edgar "Lefty" Mendieta who teams up with the head of the Pacific Cartel to confront a killer delivering death to every dentist in the region. It's Christmas in Culiacan and Detective Edgar "Lefty" Mendieta can't believe his luck. An old flame has returned with his teenage son he knew nothing about. Happiness seems to finally be at hand for our careworn hero. The only snag is that Jason Mendieta wants to follow in his father's footsteps—even as Mexico's drug war descends a slippery slope towards chaos. While Lefty pursues a lunatic who has taken to bumping off dentists with a heavy-calibre pistol, a secret agent infiltrates a meeting of the drug lords and hears Pacific Cartel boss Samantha Valdes implore her underlings to stay out of the war. But an audacious murder provokes Samantha into changing her mind and launching a grisly wave of killings across the...