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Winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary AwardWinner of the Alfaguara PrizeWinner of the Gregor von Rezzori Prize‘A powerful, humane novel about a man trying to make sense of a war he didn’t choose to fight’ The Times‘The story is compelling but through Vásquez’s vivid prose (rendered brilliantly into English by the award-winning translator Anne McLean) it also becomes haunting ? A poignant and perturbing tale about the inheritance of fear in a country scrabbling to regain its soul’ Financial TimesNo sooner does he get to know Ricardo Laverde in a seedy billiard hall in Bogotá than Antonio Yammara realises that the ex-pilot has a secret. Antonio’s fascination with his new friend’s life grows until the day Ricardo receives a mysterious, unmarked cassette.Shortly afterwards, he is shot dead on a street corner.Yammara’s investigation into what happened leads back to the early 1960s, marijuana smuggling and a time before the cocaine trade trapped Colombia in a living nightmare.
