Every year, the people of Santa Fe gather together for the burning of a four-story-tall puppet called Zozobra, a local custom that started 300 years ago. The next morning, as the sounds of the Fiesta de Santa Fe celebration still echo through the streets, Detective Sergeant Gilbert Montoya discovers a skull in the ashes of Zozobra. With the help of newspaper editor Lucy Newroe, he must find the identity of the victim and the person responsible, in a case that will take them into every level of Santa Fe society.