From the Pulitzer Prize and National Magazine Award-winning Robert Olen Butler comes his very first crime novel, a sweeping saga of espionage, suspense, action, and love set in Mexico during the run up to World War I. Christopher Marlowe Cobb, the swashbuckling early 20th-century American newspaper war correspondent, travels to Mexico in April and May of 1914. But covering the war in enemy territory and in sweltering heat isn't enough of a challenge for Cobb. Soon, he's falling in love with a young Mexican laundress, Luisa, who may not be as innocent as she seems, and he's witnessing the inexplicable attempted sniper assassination of a priest. Now Cobb is also trying to track down a sniper - and figure out why important German officials are coming into the city in the middle of the night from ammunition ships docked in the port.