On March 12, 1956, Basque Nationalist Jesús de Galíndez Suarez disappeared from his apartment in New York City, and was never heard from again. He had been working with the F.B.I., and was about to publish a book critical of Dominican strongman, Trujillo. In 1988, a graduate student, Muriel Colber, wants to make Galíndez the subject of her dissertation. She's in Spain doing research; finding little, she goes to Santo Domingo. At every turn, the C.I.A., in the person of Agent Robards, tries to thwart her; and, at each turn, as she considers abandoning the project, someone offers new information, often contradictory. She wants the truth behind the Galíndez mystery; will she find it?