Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Hector Tobar's debut novel is a tragic tale of destiny and consequence set in downtown Los Angeles on the eve of the 1992 riots. Antonio Bernal is a Guatemalan refugee haunted by memories of his wife and child murdered at the hands of a man marked with a yellow tattoo. Not far from Antonio's apartment, Guillermo Longoria extends his arm and reveals a tattoo--yellow pelt, black spots, red mouth. It is the mark of the death squad, the Jaguar Battalion of the Guatemalan army. A chance encounter ignites a psychological showdown between these two men who discover that the war in Central America has followed them to the quemazones, the "great burning" of the Los Angeles riots."
- ISBN10 0140288619
- ISBN13 9780140288612
- Publish Date 27 July 2000
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 29 June 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Penguin Books Ltd
- Format Paperback
- Pages 320
- Language English