Outlaws

In 1978 Gerona, Spain, 16-year-old Ignacio Cañas ("Gafitas") joins a delinquent gang headed by Zarco and his moll, Tere. After an armed bank robbery goes awry owing to a sting, the gang dissolves; Zarco is arrested, but the police mercifully if inexplicably release Cañas. Jumping ahead 20 years, Cañas is a successful lawyer when Tere suddenly appears and asks him to defend Zarco, now a notorious felon. Though Cañas manages to get him off, Zarco returns to a life of crime, and ultimately succumbs to AIDS. Meanwhile, Cañas carries on a clandestine affair with Tere, which culminates in startling revelations, eventually cast in doubt, about her relationship with Zarco and the robbery tip-off. Using the device of investigative inquiry, as in previous novels (Soldiers of Salamis; The Speed of Time), the story alternates between the Cercas's interviewing Cañas and the police inspector in the book's first part and the prison superintendent in the second.