In the early 1980s, Rivas, a journalist since he was 15 and thrice the recipient of the Spanish Critics Prize, reported on a growing criminal class on the verge of swallowing Galicia, Spain. Now he reimagines that era in a novel set in the fictional town of Bretema, along Galicia's coast, with Fins, Brinco, and Leda at the center of that noir hullaballoo. What the ocean brings to Bretema betrays its ragged conditions. When the protagonists are only children, a mutiny of oranges wash ashore; later come dismembered mannequins, and much later, the bodies of the dead. Buried in wild jungle and filled with abandoned desks, books, and microscopes, the School of Indians is the favorite haunt of the three friends and the setting of the most pivotal moments in their lives. Here, as children, they discovered contraband whisky and met the criminal boss Mariscal, and here, as adults, they are reunited as policeman, drug trafficker, and criminal associate to relive their old love/hate triangle, with Mariscal always remote yet always darkly present. The Spanish translation from the original Galician is at times awkward, but Rivas's strong poetic passages will give readers pause. A prolog of contextual history would have made this fantastic tale more accessible, providing the larger background now lacking. Recommended to libraries with an extensive Spanish collection.—Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Palo Alto, CA