Crime, corruption, and colonialism--as well as compassion, survival, and dark humor--are woven into which consists of three separate character-driven novels that focus on the Caribbean island and its complex political and social relationship with the U.S. , the first book, was inspired by a real-life incident when a stateside doctor, sent to the island for research, claimed in a letter that he purposely killed eight of his patients because of his disgust with the "natives." In the novel, the doctor's fictional son, a well-known, but troubled Puerto Rican artist, goes on a search for the truth of his father's possibly murderous past.