En el frio invierno de 1917, cinco soldados franceses, heridos y maniatados, caminan hacia un destino tragico en un desolado rincon del frente. Matilde sabe, en el fondo de su corazon, que su amado Manech sigue vivo, a pesar del telegrama que anunciaba que habia caido en combate junto a tantos otros de sus camaradas. Una certeza que se mezcla con el horror y la indignacion cuando, una vez acabada la guerra, un sargento moribundo le cuenta la verdad sobre la ultima vez en que vio a su novio: Manech y otros cuatro soldados, acusados de herirse a si mismos para escapar del frente, fueron atados y abandonados en tierra de nadie. A partir de ese momento, Matilde emprende la busqueda de la verdad. A lo largo de los años, armada de un coraje inquebrantable, ira escudriñando las vidas de aquel puñado de hombres entregados a la muerte. Descubrira historias de amor, de culpa, de abandono, con el trasfondo siempre de la locura colectiva que llevo a los hombres a cometer las peores atrocidades en nombre de la patria. Una conmovedora historia de amor a traves del tiempo, envuelta en un apasionante misterio que se va desvelando poco a poco, dejando al descubierto una tupida red de ilusiones, amor y desdicha. / January 1917: five French soldiers are marched to their own front lines where they will be tossed out into no man's land with their hands tied behind their backs and left for the Germans to shoot. They were, in civilian life, variously a pimp, a mechanic, a farmer, a carpenter, and a fisherman; now they are condemned because each had sought to leave the war by shooting himself in the hand. Taken to a godforsaken trench nicknamed Bingo Crepuscule, the five are reluctantly sent out into the darkness; days later, five bodies are recovered and the families are notified, merely, that the men died in the line of duty. August 1919: Mathilde Donnay receives a letter from a dying man. In it, the former soldier tells her that he met her beloved fiance, the fisherman Manech, shortly before he died. Mathilde goes to meet Sergeant Daniel Esperanza at his hospital and there hears the story of the execution. She also receives a package with a photograph of the men and copies of their last letters. As Mathilde reads and rereads the letters and goes over Esperanza's tale, she begins to suspect that perhaps the story didn't end quite so neatly. And so begins her very long investigation into the mysterious circumstances surrounding the deaths of five condemned prisoners--one of whom, at least, might not really be dead.