Publisher's Synopsis
Liberated from her Spanish convent, Angélica goes wild in the northern Argentinean city of San Miguel de Tucumán. Fernando rescues her from her youthful promiscuity and they settle into marriage in his conservative family and have a son. Then the military Junta abducts Fernando and makes him "disappear". In her search for him she learns about their atrocious torture methods, becomes a target and escapes to Montevideo avowing to avenge his loss. On the ferry across the Rio de la Plata, she encounters expatriate American, Kevin Bartholomew. To elude the Junta agents in Uruguay, Kevin changes her into Alicia de la Rosa, a flamboyant fashion plate. The new persona provides the mobility to form a Spanish Club, to collect documentation of the torture by the Argentinean security forces of people fleeing Argentina. Through Uruguayan diplomatic agents he has Alicia trained to use a small handgun for her security in Montevideo. Returning from abroad he takes her dancing to a tango club and on their way home an Argentinian agent tries to shoot Kevin, but Alicia shoots him first. They seek refuge in Chile. The Uruguay security police expose them and they come under attack in Patagonia. Kevin brings down two Argentinian soldiers crossing the high mountain border south of Bariloche and while reporting the incident, charms the senior Chilean officer into providing protection for them in Santiago where Alicia completes her psychoanalyst training and gives birth to her daughter. In Los Angles she completes her Master's degree and moves to set up a partnership to practice psychotherapy in San Miguel. The trauma of listening to accounts of terrible torture sporadically makes her revert to Angélica's personality complete with errant sexually behavior. Kevin acquires an Estancia near Santiago and therapy partner, Elena, joins them to relieve each other on alternative weeks, without neglecting their collective children. In the wake of Argentina's defeat by the British in the Falkland Islands, the Junta collapses which returns elected government which orders the military to court marshal the Junta leaders and provides for their prosecution in civil courts. Alicia, Elena and Dr Diaz narrow their campaign to two cases with incontrovertible proof involving officers with clear culpability. To get one key witnesses to testify Alicia responds to a series of explicit sexual trysts with the use of cocaine. Kevin is constrained to stand silently watching, until the drug-crazed soldier gets rough and Kevin instinctively jerks him off his wife and blunts his resistance with a shot from his handgun, parting the soldier's dense curly hair. Kevin presents Alicia with the alternative of behaving or leaving. Returning for an answer, Kevin finds the house empty, except for the chaotic signs of a hurried departure in her bedroom. He flies to Córdoba where the neatly dressed soldier greets him with a conciliatory demeanor, vowing to keep his word to testify and wishing to make amends for the harm he had done. Kevin gathers up his overdosed, bleeding wife and flies her home to Santiago. The hospital's prognosis for her recovery is unfavorable, foreseeing serious psychological damage and a possible hysterectomy. Kevin diligently helps Alicia rebuild her self-esteem while Elena takes over managing the witnesses and quickly secures agreements with other witnesses to testify. The case against the top officers in Buenos Aires for the theft of babies and murder of their mothers, reaches a guilty verdict with long prison sentences. Elated, Alicia recovers to rejoin Elena in their practice. She throws herself into helping, Dr. Diaz, to counter an avalanche of legal motions by defense lawyers to delay a verdict in the case against the Tucumán commander for murdering prisoners. In the end Alicia joins a Spanish judge in Madrid to lay bear the culpability of the General in Tucuman. Ultimately they are all sentenced in Argentina.
