A mysterious murder ?which everyone attributes to a secret organization? is the author’s pretext to unveil life under a repressive dictatorship. The setting is a provincial Brazilian port during World War II, and the plot is a political allegory that explores the nature of good and evil, and the corruption and violence generated by absolute power ?just like a snake’s nest. “Under a dictatorship, stories are poorly told,” explains the author, “for a dictatorship is a kingdom of lies incapable of bearing the truth.”