From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Liliana's Invincible Summer, a dreamlike, genre-defying novel about a professor and detective seeking justice in a world suffused with gendered violence. 'Deeply rewarding . . . a dreamscape with a powerful undertow . . . a] harrowing and labyrinthine masterpiece.'--Katie Kitamura, The New York Times (Editors' Choice) A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Esquire, Marie Claire, Denver Public Library A city is always a cemetery. A professor named Cristina Rivera Garza stumbles upon the corpse of a mutilated man in a dark alley and reports it to the police. When shown a crime scene photo, she finds a stark warning written in tiny print with coral nail polish on the brick wall beside the body: 'Beware of me, my love / beware of the silent woman in the desert.' The professor becomes the first informant on the case, which is led by a detective newly obsessed with poetry and trailed by a long list of failures. But