Lituma en los Andes / Death in the Andes
Novel , 1993
Penguin Random House
Pages: 320
In a remote Andean village, three men have disappeared. Peruvian Army corporal Lituma and his deputy Tomas have been dispatched to investigate, and to guard the town from the Shining Path guerrillas they assume are responsible. But the townspeople do not trust the officers, and they have their own ideas about what forces claimed the bodies of the missing men. To pass the time, and to cope with their homesickness, Tomas entertains Lituma nightly with the sensuous, surreal tale of his precarious love affair with a wayward prostitute. His stories are intermingled with the ongoing mystery of the missing men.
Death in the Andes is an atmospheric suspense story and a political allegory, a panoramic view of contemporary Peru.