A moral thriller of the first order, The Racket is set in the darkly shadowed Latin American landscape of modern-day Brazil, a vast country on the brink of anarchic lawlessness on every level and bankruptcy both material and spiritual. Against the background of urban decay and the rape of nature, social disintegration, and private despair, two people find themselves at dangerous odds with the institutional savagery around them.

One is an idealistic young teacher, Rosa Van Meurs, whose innocently written letter of protest against a corporate violation of native tribal land makes her the target of retribution. The other is her cousin Fabio, a poet and dreamer, who has drifted into the underworld to become an instrument of an evil, with no escape short of death. Inevitably these two opposites are drawn together, their fates intertwined in a tale taut with suspense as it moves toward moments of decision and final reckoning.