Cuban detective Mario Conde (aka "the Count") is approaching the end of his police career and his 36th birthday with drunken abandon while also anticipating, almost welcoming, the arrival of a devastating hurricane. Fed up with the latest departmental purges, which have claimed his boss and mentor, Major Rangel, Conde resigns from the department only to be offered a challenge and a bargain by Rangel's newly appointed replacement. If he can solve the brutal murder of a highly placed Cuban defector within three days, Conde's resignation will be accepted without prejudice.

Padura grounds his tale against a backdrop of governmental corruption, the broken promises of the Cuban revolution and the difficult relations between those Cubans who fled the Castro regime and those who stayed.