Plot Summary

Pamplona (autonomous community of Navarra's capital; north to Spain). One year after Basajaun's crimes, nine-months pregnant Inspector Amaia Salazar is on the city court waiting for the trial of Jason Medina, who is accused to raping, mutilating, and murdering her stepdaughter Márquez. But just before the trial, Medina is found in the court's bathroom, dead from suicide, his wrists cut, and a note in his jeans pocket: "Tarttalo." Just then Amaia's water breaks and she gives birth to her son Ibai, and she and her sculptor and gallery-artist husband James Westford celebrate. Reinstated to active service four months later, Amaia is called by her superior to give two different cases: Monseñor Landero and Padre Sarasola requested Amaia specifically to investigate with secrecy the profanation of a little church where a baby's amputated arm was found on the altar; and a man incarcerated in Logroño (autonomous community of La Rioja's capital) by his wife's killing has sent her a note revealing where is his wife's corpse with "Tarttalo" in the message, committing suicide after giving the note to a prison guard. Finding the corpse in Elizondo's surroundings, Amaia takes Ibai back to her birth town where she meets again with tarot-card-caster Aunt Engrasi, and her older sisters Flora and Rosaura, who are happy to meet their new nephew, Discovering that the two women killed were amputated of their right arm after the crime, it matches with the church's profanation, after to learn that all arms were cut with the same pattern and weapon. Finding that it's related to the Agotes, a tribe pursued in the Middle Ages by the Spanish Inquisition for their pagan beliefs and rites, and that Tarttalo is the name of an ancient mythical Christian-eating giant, Amaia asks help by video-conference to her former mentor and FBI's agent Aloisius Dupree, at the same time Aunt Engrasi uses tarot to predict what could happen and judge Javier Markina follows with the investigation attentively. This causes a coolness in James and Amaia's relationship although he had moved to Elizondo to be closer to his wife and son. But the case takes a dramatic turn: an amputated baby's arm is revealed to be Amaia's twin sister she never knew existed, and Amaia's mother Rosario, secluded in a mental hospital ever since she tried to kill Amaia at birth, has killed a male nurse, writing "Tarttalo" in blood under the bed, causing re-apparition of the enigmatic psychiatrist Padre Saralosa, interested in Rosario and convincing Amaia to move Rosario to the university hospital he heads. Forced to look into her family's past, Amaia will not only discover the relationship between her mother and a sect dedicated to a pagan cult that performed human sacrifices, abut also that all of the crimes have a much too personal connection to her. While Elizondo is in danger of an incoming flood, Amaia must solve the case and identify the killer before any of her dearest loved ones becomes the next victim.—Chockys