Havana, 2003 - 14 years since Mario Conde retired from the police force and much has changed in Cuba. Now an antique book trader, Conde discovers an extraordinary book collection in the house of Alcides de Montes de Oca, a rich Cuban who fled after the fall of Batista, and, buried within a newspaper article about Violeta del Rio, a beautiful bolero singer who disappeared in the 1950s. Conde's intuition sets him off on an investigation that leads him into a darker Cuba, now flooded with dollars and populated by pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers.