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Contents
The victim. He is wealthy, the son of an Arab immigrant, and well-liked by some and resented by others. He wakes up the morning of his death in good spirits, unaware of what is coming. Whether he actually wronged Angela is the novel's central unanswered question.
The woman whose naming of Santiago sets the murder in motion. She starts as a passive figure — chosen by Bayardo, returned in shame, beaten by her mother. But she transforms over the years, writing obsessively to Bayardo and eventually reclaiming him on her own terms.
Angela's twin brothers. They kill Santiago to restore family honor and make almost no effort to hide their plan. They seem to want to be stopped. When no one stops them, they go through with it. They are acquitted at trial and live with the act for the rest of their lives.
The husband who returns Angela on their wedding night. He is charming, rich, and mysterious — the town knows almost nothing real about him. His return at the end of the novel, carrying Angela's unopened letters, is the closest the book comes to a redemption arc.
An unnamed journalist and childhood friend of Santiago who returns to town twenty-seven years later to reconstruct the murder. He is not neutral — he loved Santiago, he failed to warn him, and his guilt shapes every page. His investigation never fully resolves what happened.
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