February 2015 and the mountainous countryside outside Bilbao is in the fierce grip of winter, with heavy snowfalls and freezing temperatures. A phone call from an old friend in Cuba worried about his daughter, married to an older man in Bilbao and out of contact for several months, sends Osmany Arechabala out to look for the woman. He asks for help from Nekane, policewoman he met the previous year in his investigations of various murders (Justice).
At the same time, Agurtzane reports her lover Lola as missing from the lonely farmhouse they moved into recently, and the investigation uncovers other women who have disappeared without trace. Nothing is as straightforward as it seems and various guilty parties are discovered, along with police corruption and some very shady dealings. The result will not all be a happy ending and Osmany unwittingly makes himself a target for some very dangerous people.
The novel takes places three months after the events of Justice, and features some of the same characters, as well as introducing new ones. The events play out in the city of Bilbao and also in the surrounding mountainous countryside, dotted with remote farms and country houses, during a hard, snowy winter.
World Spanish: Grijalbo, 2021
Translation rights available