A powerful historical novel about the assassination in 1961 of Raphael Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic for more than thirty years. The author does a fantastic job of getting into the heads of all his characters, having us empathize with each of them and feel the trauma they endured in a visceral way. He brings to life the historical figures from the time and manages to even give a sympathetic portrait of the head of the armed forces who let so many of his co-conspirators down. It is a story of people balancing their ambition and fear with the tremendous courage required to stand against the brutality of living under the rule of a dictator.Publisher's description:
A tyrant's last days are the focus of this magisterial, long-awaited novel, as Mario Vargas Llosa recounts the end of a regime in the Dominican Republic and the terrible birth of a democracy.