Lisbon, 1989. A middle-aged poor man, tormented by an illness, lives in a cheap room in a family boarding house, in the old section of the city's waterfront.
It is 1905 and Luis Bernardo Valença, a thirty-seven-year-old bachelor and owner of a small shipping company, is revelling in Lisbon's luxurious high society. But his life is turned upside down when King Dom Carlos invites him to become governor of Portugal's smallest colony, the island of São Tomé e Principe.
The series develops around cases of homicides that occurred during the summer, at the time of the economic and social crisis that affected Portugal.
