After a series of personal failures, a biologist returns home to live with his grieving mother. But in this gripping crime novel that upends all the genre's conventions, what awaits him now may be even stranger than the place he left behind. When a biologist returns home to Colombia after fifteen years abroad, he becomes quickly entangled in the trappings of his past: a brother murdered, a dealer of beautiful thoughts, a private school where students disappear and girls give birth to strange creatures. A chance encounter with an old acquaintance in the film industry leads to a job offer and launches an inner conflict full of holes and missteps. Ultimately, he may be destined to remain in the city he'd hoped never to see again--in The Devil of the Provinces, nothing is as it seems.