Marta has just met Victor when she invites him to dinner at her Madrid apartment while her husband is away on business. When her two-year-old son finally falls asleep, Marta and Victor move to the bedroom. Undressing, she feels suddenly ill; and in his arms, inexplicably, she dies. What should Victor do? Remove the compromising tape from the phone machine? Leave food for the child, for breakfast? How soon will someone discover her death? Unable to bear not knowing, Victor steps into the shadows cast by secrets, death, and the workings of time. And Javier Marías, master of secrets, explores what lies reveal and the truth may conceal in this “seductive story, a metaphysical thriller, tracking endless lines of infidelities across Europe” (The Observer).