The high Andean Cordillera of Peru is where Mario Vargas Llosa weaves this tale. Tomasito, a young Lieutenant, finds himself stationed in Naccos – a desolate and dying town commenced with a now closed mine and surviving by building and rebuilding a road that’s continuously buried by landslides but leads nowhere anyways. Lituma, the Corporal, listens night after night to Tomasito’s lamenting and memories of his lost love Mercedes, a dark beauty from the coast. That is, until the disappearance of three men distracts his attention. Were they murdered by the terrucos? Maybe their bodies were made to shrivel up so that a pishtaco could boil their fat. Or was the coca-leaf-reading Dona Adriana and her lush of a husband Dioniosi involved? Only the “bowels of the earth” where the “bulls, serpents, condors, and spirits lived” may ever know the truth…
