His missionary father dies in the jaws of a giant Amazon boa. At age four he sees his mother from the Waika people raped and murdered by Colombian drug traders who hurl the orphan boy into the upper Rio Negro. A fresh water dolphin grieving the loss of her own baby rescues him and noses him to shore. So begins the feral rearing of Lazaro, nurtured by the most intellectually gifted creatures in the world outside of mankind. But "civilization" menaces beyond the fringe of his jungle home. And his mother's killer lurks in the big city.