他是一个在独裁政权中当过保镖和密探的人，谁给他钱，他就为谁做事。他可以为上司到妓院去收“月钱”，镇压妇女游行，甚至为了帮上司搞社交而甘心充当喜好同性的大资产家费尔民·萨瓦拉的泄欲工具。他是司机、打手；是受害人，也是凶手。他目睹上层社会种种丑行，了解各种政治阴谋和腐化生活，最后在狗场以捕狗打狗为生。
他是一个默默无闻的失意记者，也大资产家费尔民·萨瓦拉的宝贝儿子，却和一个“本应做他仆人的女人”结婚。他一生一事无成：闹革命时没有信仰，谈恋爱时失败，写社论时净写狂犬病问题，调查凶杀案时凶手和父亲有染……用他自己的话说，他一生倒霉。
这样的两个人偶然相遇了，一起去酒吧饮酒忆旧，两人的谈话贯穿了整部小说，独特的“对话波”结构牵动层层故事和情感，史诗般宏阔波谲、戏剧般生动诡异的巨幅长卷就此展开：黑暗时代的独裁统治下，被席卷的日常生活、爱情和梦想……一一浮现。

"The hour of capitalism's greatest triumph" writes Hernando de Soto, "is, in the eyes of four-fifths of humanity, its hour of crisis." In The Mystery of Capital , the world-famous Peruvian economist takes up the question that, more than any other, is central to one of the most crucial problems the world faces today: Why do some countries succeed at capitalism while others fail? In strong opposition to the popular view that success is determined by cultural differences, de Soto finds that it actually has everything to do with the legal structure of property and property rights. Every developed nation in the world at one time went through the transformation from predominantly informal, extralegal ownership to a formal, unified legal property system. In the West we've forgotten that creating this system is what also allowed people everywhere to leverage property into wealth. This persuasive book revolutionizes our understanding of capital and points the way to a major transformation of the world economy.