In 1972, 18-year-old Frederick Boyle arrives by ship in the heat and dust of Montevideo, Uruguay. Equipped with little more than a phrase book and a few pesos, he quickly finds himself renamed Ramon Bolio. Uruguay is a country on the brink of dictatorship and as Ramon finds friends within the resistance movement and marvels at the beautiful girls, the world around him is changing rapidly. Then one night he discovers the tango and begins the long process of becoming a Milonguero – a master of the dance.

Looking back on this time many years later from a new life in York, Ramon finds himself at the heart of a mystery surrounding the disappearance of a teenage girl. He reflects on the threads that link the past to the present, of how the people and events from his time in Uruguay have shaped his life. Winged with Death is a novel about time and tango and revolution, abduction and denial.