"Compelling, hypnotic, and exciting at the same time." --Los Angeles Review of Books

Retired spy Tomás Nevinson--once an agent for the British Secret Service, now living a quiet life in his hometown, Madrid--is approached by his former handler, Bertram Tupra, with an offer to bring him back in from the cold for one last assignment.

The mission: to go undercover again, in a small Spanish town, to find out which of three women who moved there a decade ago is in fact a terrorist trained by the IRA, on the run after masterminding several deadly attacks.

Everything about the assignment is shadowy, from exactly who is in charge, to the question of what "justice" Nevinson will need to mete out once he unmasks the terrorist. But, lured by the appeal of being back on the inside, he accepts the job.

Nevinson soon becomes intimately involved with each of the three women. How--or whom--to choose among them? Under increasing pressure, he must choose, and then act . . .

Charting a world in which right and wrong, good and evil, are irreparably blurred, Javier Marías takes us on a journey of rare and unforgettable suspense in this, the final novel written before his untimely passing.