Those Who Don't Love Die First

On Christmas in 2009, a worker from Social Security, Pepa Ordovás, dies when a young woman pushes her through the window of her office building. The girl flees, but in her vertiginous escape she throws an anorak and a hat into a trash bin. These are the only clues Julián Tresser, Lieutenant in the Judicial Police of the Civil Guard, has to go on.

The case breaks just as evidence appears about the whereabouts of Luba, a girl who disappeared two years back. Tresser thinks she’s a blood relative. Along with Inspector Teresa, he finds that Luba has managed to escape from a mansion in Madrid where prostitution and gambling take place. She has taken refuge in a country house in Palencia. She gets there walking through the snow, and suffers a serious wound in a fall. The house where she hides belongs to a famous actress, Elsa Davín, who is preparing for her dream production of The Doll’s House. She and her friend Muriel arrive there one night, deeply upset by what has happened to them in Madrid.