A Million Drops

In 1933, young Spanish communist Elías Gil travels to Moscow to study. He is arrested and sent to Siberia for a crime he didn't commit. By the time he escapes, he has done unforgivable things: he lets the woman he loves drown and gives up her daughter to an abusive monster in return for saving his own life. The rest of Elías's story is the consequence of these choices. Forty years later, back in Spain, he disappears. His wife claims he was killed by fascists, but the facts are murky. Then in 2002, his son Gonzalo learns that his long-estranged sister Laura has committed suicide to avoid arrest for the torture-murder of a Russian who killed her son. Slowly at first, then faster, Gonzalo's life unravels as he investigates Laura's death and family history. Eventually, he realizes that his father wasn't the great antifascist hero of the Spanish Civil War he thought he was. By the end of this book, all are tainted and few live without regret.