“Strongly atmospheric . . . Fans of Spanish Mystery master Arturo Perez-Revate will enjoy this volume.” — Baltimore Sun

“There’s plenty to admire in this mystery. . . . Satisfying.”— Washington Post Book World

“Impressive levels of storytelling and fairness. . . . Wonderful. . . . Pawel resists easy solutions to historically difficult problems.”— Chicago Tribune

“A colorful, thrilling story about loyalty and love . . . Pawel weaves together her characters’ fate with a deft and cunning hand.”— Detroit Free Press

“[Pawel] frames the difficult and moral questions of the era in the lives of her fascinating characters, bringing history alive.”— Rocky Mountain News

Lieutenant Carlos Tejada has been transferred to Salamanca, the city where he studied law before the Civil War. His new police duties include monitoring parolees—former professors who were fired for protesting a Franco decree. Elena Fernandez, having lost her job because of her political sympathies, has returned home to Salamanca from Madrid where she and Tejada had first been romantically involved. Her father, one of the parolees, was a distinguished professor of Classics. He has just received a letter from a Jewish friend, Professor Joseph Meyer, begging for help to cross into Spain from France before he is forcibly repatriated to Germany.

Professor Fernandez cannot violate his parole by traveling to the border town of San Sebastian so Elena goes in his stead. Tejada, tracing a missing parolee, finds himself in San Sebastian, too. There Elena and Tejada’s paths fatefully cross again.

Rebecca Pawel is 26 years old, lives in New York City and teaches at a Brooklyn high school. Her widely-praised first novel, Death of a Nationalist , won the 2004 Edgar® Award for Best First Novel and was an LA Times Book Prize finalist. Death of a Nationalist appeared on several 2003 top ten mystery lists, including Chicago Tribune , Publishers Weekly and Detroit Free Press .


From the Trade Paperback edition.