This novel tells of the vicissitudes of a wealthy family with a long history living in Lima. The author offers us a vivid portrait of the founder of this saga: a miner at the end of the nineteenth century who with enormous creativity and no small sacrifice creates a great financial empire. We are also told the story of his descendants. Judging by the dramatic lives lived by these family members, the veneer of civilization with which they adorn their lives does not free them of the most basic instincts that beat within them. Only this can explain that the game of life consists, for some of the characters, in controlling other lives, opposing destinies, and in an overwhelming extreme, getting rid of those who threaten the established order of things. With this novel Bryce has achieved a violent, tender, ferocious and even merciless portrait of a family that loses absolutely everything anf whose last descendants embody the most horrific decadance of lineage. "A suffocating portrait of the Peruvian oligarchy with a rabelesque humour" (Ricardo Gonzalez Vigil, El Comercio). "This novel is made elegant by its brilliant sense of humour and its baroque syntax, filled with digressions. Without doubt, the best novel to come from Bryce since Don´t Wait For Me in April"(Javier Agreda, La Republica).