Following the collapse of Ireland's 1916 Easter Uprising, revolutionary Roger Casement awaits the hangman in London's Pentonville Prison, in this 2012 novel by the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Way to Paradise and The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta. Having valiantly exposed European mistreatment of natives throughout South America, Casement is branded a traitor for his attempts to enlist German military assistance against the British. Popular support for the Irishman is strong, but the exposure of Casement's homosexuality may destroy his last hope for clemency.

"Mario Vargas Llosa has done an inestimable service to the memory of a great man."—John Banville