Tochtli likes hats, dictionaries, samurais, guillotines and the French. But Tochtli is a child, and what he wants now is a new animal for his private zoo: a dwarf Liberian hippopotamus. His father, Yolcaut, a drugs trafficker at the peak of his power, is willing to satisfy his every whim. Because Yolcaut always can. Tochtli lives in a palace: a gilded warren which he shares with about thirteen or fourteen other people; killers, prostitutes, dealers, servants and the odd corrupt politician. And there is also Mazatzin, his private tutor, for whom the world is a place of injustice where the Imperialists are to blame for everything. Beheadings, rivers of blood, piles of corpses. The warren in is Mexico and, as is well known, Mexico is sometimes a wonderful, sometimes a terrible country. Life, in the end, is a game.