Amid the spectacular festivities of Holy Week in Seville, an aspiring novelist stuggles with his work and pays his bills by composing crossword puzzles. A cryptic recording left on his answering machine demands that he include a certain word in a future puzzle, and he becomes drawn into a spiraling tangle of mystery, danger and confusion. Soon he's forced into participating in a real-life version of a computer game on the narrow streets of Seville, the stakes being extremely high for the entire city.