Written by Chilean author Roberto Bolano, The Savage Detectives tells the story of Mexican poet Cesárea Tinajero, who mysteriously vanished. The novel follows "savage detectives" Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima as they try to track him down.
The first part of the novel, set in 1975, follows 17-year-old Juan García Madero, a young aspiring poet who becomes involved with a group of poets called the Visceral Realists. This is followed by the second part of the novel, which is told from the perspective of numerous narrators. Each of the narrators have been associated with Lima and Belano, the founders of the Visceral Realists. The descriptions are generally distasteful, depicting the two men negatively.
In the third section, the novel returns to the original narrator Juan García Madero, following on from the first section. In this part of the novel, the founders Lima and Belano are traveling through the desert, and close in on the mysterious poet.
