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Paloma knows little of her father’s life in Argentina in the 1970s, a time where a military dictatorship seized control and resulted in hundreds of people disappearing without a trace. Having never given it much thought, Paloma is surprised when a woman named Grace appears at one of her family’s parties and introduces herself to Paloma as an old friend of her father’s from their days at university. Intrigued by the mysterious woman, Paloma embarks on a journey to discover what secrets her father is hiding, and some may just be too much to comprehend. Running parallel to Paloma’s story is Santiago’s, beginning in 1974 when he meets and falls in love with Valentina, a confident woman with dreams of a brighter future. As their country is rocked by political changes, Santiago and Valentina find themselves in danger and forced to make decisions that will shape their futures.

The Dirty War was a topic in history that, despite occurring less than fifty years ago, gets little coverage in the historical fiction genre. During this violent time thousands of innocent civilians were arrested, tortured, and eventually killed, often without any of their loved ones knowing. It has left an undeniable mark on Argentina today and I was therefore fascinated to pick this book up.

For the most part I thought the story was well done. I hesitate to use the word “enjoyable” as the subject is very heavy and you can feel the characters’ pain when discussing what happened to loved ones who vanished without a trace and no justice being carried out. Nonetheless, I felt Ms. Clark handled the subject matter very well and I learned quite a bit while reading.

As the summary suggests the book contains a dual storyline which sort of works. I found Paloma’s story to be the most interesting, as she unravels what her father did during this time and also learning about a woman she had never heard before she began her journey. I thought the second storyline, following Paloma’s father, Santiago, and his love interest, would have been stronger if the author had focused on telling events from just one of their points of view. The storyline starts off with Santiago, giving the impression we will be following him but it often went back and forth between him and Valentina, the woman he falls in love with. This could have worked but it felt a bit scattered and sometimes the point of view changed in the same section, making for some slightly complicated reading. To be honest, I would have preferred to have the entire second storyline told from Valentina’s perspective as, quite frankly, most of the story seemingly revolves around her. She was a fascinating character and very well developed and I wish I could have gotten more of her thoughts and feelings. Because it didn’t I felt the story suffered a little bit as I found myself skimming Santiago’s story, hoping to get back to Valentina, and trying to figure out from who’s perspective an event is being seen through.

The story is very engrossing and, in a feat I haven’t been able to accomplish since perhaps high school, I managed to finish this story in one weekend. The story does manage to catch your attention and hold it. However, there were a couple of times where I did struggle as there were some sections that probably could have been caught out. I felt some of Paloma’s sections could have been tightened up and explained a bit more. I would have love to read more about her investigating her father’s past and working that in to what was happening in the second story line. The two story lines weren’t really in tandem and if that had been worked out a bit more I think the story would have been much stronger.

Overall I have to applaud Ms. Clark for tackling such a serious topic and doing it was grace. I would recommend this book but only to someone who is really interested in this time in history as, since I felt the book did struggle in a few places, it could have someone casually reading the book to lose interest. Still, I don’t think what I learned during this dark time in history will leave me anytime soon.

3 out of 5 stars