On the banks of a sprawling Brazilian river lies São Tiago. A place poised between the old ways and the new. It’s a town for people with nowhere else to run; a place where Sam, a former priest, has ended up. He left England to help people, but what he’s seen has scarred him, and now he cares about nothing except drinking and fishing on the great river.

But one night changes all that. When a man lies bleeding on a dirt floor, what starts as a fight to save a life becomes a battle with São Tiago’s dark heart. Caught between friends and enemies, and entangled in the affections of an ex-prostitute and a predatory landowner’s wife, Sam realises that in a place where life is cheap, love can be deadly.

As the long dry season stretches out ahead, Sam must face his past if he is to forge the chance of a future and survive in a town without a soul.