In this richly evocative novel, filled with the eerie folklore and loud colours of Haiti, Victor, an American zoologist, and Thierry, a Haitian steeped in the spirits and fauna of his native land, become unlikely companions in the hunt for the rare blood frog. As the small creature eludes its hunters, Victor and Thierry unfold the tapestry of events that has brought them to their fateful encounter. Thierry s is a tale of fraternal rivalries, sexual tangles and of obedience to the magic rites that rule his world. Victor s journey is as much an escape from a marriage surviving only on paper as it is a desperate attempt to find a threatened species. Peopled with a rainbow cast of characters and an equally exotic range of flora and fauna, Mayra Montero s novel is a spellbinding and seductive experience of life on the edge of decay and extinction.