On a college field trip to caverns near the remote Mexican village of Bustamante, the daughter of a U.S. senator is murdered and the blood drained from her body. Detective Artemas Salcido, a Harvard-educated, illegitimate son of a Mexican governor and a Yaqui Indian girl, is responsible for the investigation. Handsome and cosmopolitan, Artemas was banished to Bustamante because of his ill-advised propensity for solving politically sensitive crimes, and now he finds himself in the middle of yet another. The international press, two FBI agents, and a brutal squad of...