In alternating chapters enigmatic Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos & crime writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II create an uproarious murder mystery with intersecting storylines. Those chapters written by the famously masked Marcos originate in the mountains of Chiapas Mexico where amid a hallucinatory blend of different voices we meet Elias a Zapatista detective tasked with locating missing people. Taibo's chapters star his Coca-Cola-&-cigarette-consuming series detective Hector Belascoaran Shayne: a PI specialising in cases stranger than reality. The two stories collide absurdly & dramatically in the sprawl of Mexico City. The ugly history of the city's political violence rears its head & both detectives find themselves in an unlikely dance of death with forces at once criminal historical & political.