Brought up amid the twin centainties of church and state in Edwardian Britain, young James Dunbar goes to sea in search of romantic adventure. Even when he falls in love with a waterfront prostitute named Conchita, he continues to believe that the purity of his emotion can rescue her from the Hotal Paradiso, the notorious brothel of Puerto San Martin. But Puerto San Martin is a place of common trafficking and commerce - and no place for the innocent...