A while ago the journalist Ana R. Cañil began to follow the trail of a terrible story: that of post war prisoners whose children were taken away from them by guards and shut away in seminaries and convents or given up for adoption. This cruel practice was "justified" by pseudoscientific theories characteristic of totalitarian regimes and upheld seamlessly by renowned doctors, priests and legislators of the time. Here was material for an essay but the author found herself emotionally drawn to attempt something with more ambition. The result is a novel you cannot put down, not only because of the awful events it describes but also the way these events are fleshed out in two unforgettable antagonists: Jimena Bartolomé, the yound wife of a  Communist, and María Topete, the head of the Ventas women's prison.