A big, brawling novel of waterfront life in Bahia, packed with cardsharpers, prostitutes, pimps, drunks and homeless Don Juans and Messalinas. It tells three interlinked and cumulating stories - about a marriage, a christening and a siege.

The things that happen in Shepherds of the Night are bound to happen once the cleverest of the Don Juans marries an out-of-town prostitute and tires of her; once an unmarried mother insists on a church christening for her fatherless child; and once a group of homeless Bahians erect their shacks on private property.