Returning to her native Dominican Republic, forty-nine-year-old Urania Cabral discovers that Rafael Trujillo, the depraved dictator called "the Goat," still reigns over his inner circle, which includes Urania's father, with brutality and blackmail. But Trujillo's grasp is slipping. There is a conspiracy against him, and a Machiavellian revolution is already under way that will have bloody consequences of its own. This magisterial novel recounts the end of a regime and the terrible birth of a democracy, giving voice to the historical Trujillo and to the victims, both innocent and complicit, who were drawn into his deadly orbit.