The discovery that she has a half-brother in Mexico, and that he has died trying to cross the American border as an illegal immigrant, comes as a profound shock to Annie Meredith, safe in the Welsh stone house where she was born. Driven more by instinct that reason, she travels to Texas to see Cristobal buried and to find out more about his life – and death. Immediately she becomes embroiled in border politics: the desperate efforts of poverty-stricken Mexicans to go north for work; the losing battle fought by the US Broder Patrol to turn them back; the unscrupulous men who would kill for the money to be made from human traffic. And people are not the only commodity to make the difficult and dangerous journey. Drugs also pass that way and so too do treasures from Mexicos glorious past…