Bernard and his sister Eloisa live in a ramshackle house, the rest of their ancient past and prosperity. They are waiting for their old and sick Aunt Lina to die, to inherit her vast fortune and meanwhile have a morbid existence, full of obsessions and manias.

A man's body turns up on a Barcelona beach with a message tattooed on his arm: "I was born to revolutionize hell". Detective Pepe Carvalho is put in charge of the case, taking him from the back streets of Barcelona to the Amsterdam canals, with no effect whatsoever on his peculiar investigation methods.