A hacker gets into the Pope's personal computer to leave a warning about a small church in Seville that is "killing to defend itself" against threatened demolition. Father Quart, sent to investigate, is reluctantly drawn into the heart of a stiflingly hot but incurably appealing Seville, where the flashy success of noveau Euro-trash mixes dangerously with old money and the shabby cosmopolitanism of the medieval city. Among the church's enemies are Quart's old adversary the Archbishop of Seville and the ambitious young banker Pencho Gavira. But if long experience has taught Quart how to deal with characters like these, nothing has prepared him for the irresistible attraction of Gavira's ex-wife, nor the ignorant, stubborn anger of Father Ferro, the ageing priest who would rather die than see his precious church destroyed.
