Rosario Tijeras is the violent, violated character at the center of Jorge Franco Ramos' delicately balanced novel, set in self-destructing 1980s Medellin. Her very name-evoking the rosary and scissors-bespeaks her conflict as a woman who becomes a contract killer to insulate herself from the random violence of the streets (in a country where it is common practice among her colleagues to boil bullets in holy water before using them). Then she is shot, gravely wounded, and the circle of contradiction is closed. From the corridors of the hospital where Rosario is fighting for her life, Antonio, the narrator, waits to learn if she will recover. Through him, we reconstruct the friendship between the two, her love story with Emilio, and her life as a hitwoman.