Agueda is a 35-year-old woman who has just lost her mother and is trying to resolve the wounds of the past with a hunger for the present. This sharp, contradictory and fiery woman finds herself confronting the strangeness of being alive while maintaining her curiosity in the face of the unknowable future. After a phase as a rock singer embroiled in a tempestuous love affair, she devotes herself to researching the story of an enigmatic and extravagant eighteenth-century adventurer. Her investigation leads her inexorably into profound reflections on her childhood, her parents' relationship and her own emotional landscape. This is a superb novel played out against a backdrop of broken dreams, lies, the pain of loss and the search for love. Rarely has such an intense meditation on the adventure of existence combined with the pace and mystery of the best thrillers to keep the reader engrossed until the very last page.