Houston homicide detective Stuart Haydon deals in lost souls, and Lena Muller, daughter of a prominent local family, is about as lost as you can get. Three months have passed since Lena went out to meet an old friend, and she has yet to retum. Haydon is determined to bring her home. But word has come that she has surfaced in a place far beyond her jurisdiction and way out of his league. To find her he must head for Guatemala, a land where people never die . . . they simply disappear. From the moment he arrives in Guatemala City Haydon finds nothing but traces of the Lena, her journalist lover, and the private detective who tracked them down. As he searches for the young woman in a ravaged country, he encounters a trail of her lovers and a string of brutal murders. Lena, it appears, has unearthed a dirty secret, one that reeks of death. Drawn into a world of casual violence and corruption, Haydon soon find that, like Lena, he is seeking the body of truth at the heart of a labyrinth of lies.