Arias Cuevas sets in motion a chain of bloody events when police catch him trying to carry a shipment of la Tía's cocaine into Italy. The intended recipient of the coke appears to have been art smuggler Nazzareno Corradi. But Corradi has been set up and through his lawyer hires "the Alligator" to get him out of the mess he's in. Meanwhile, la Tía, a notoriously ruthless figure in the Colombian drug trade, is determined to move her operation to Italy, where cocaine has become all the rage among the professional classes. There's only one thing standing in her way: the Alligator. The Alligator, an ex-con turned investigator, and his two companions, former underworld heavy, Beniamino Rossini, and Max the Memory, a once militant political activist in whom a certain idealism has not faded, are among Massimo Carlotto's most vivid noir creations. They readily demonstrate why Carlotto has been called "the reigning king of Mediterranean noir."