A playful dog finds a bone at the outset of this mystery set in So Paulo, Brazil. Chief Inspector Mario Silva of the federal police based in Brasilia and his team of investigators, Hector Costa and Arnaldo Nues, are called in. The bone is human and the investigators soon unearth a clandestine cemetery-and then another. Someone has secretly disposed of the bodies of hundreds of unknown human beings, often interred in family groups. And in So Paulo, it turns out, many patrons of a local travel agency have never reached their North American destinations. The motive for these mass murders is completely contemporary and completely appalling.