Author: Arturo Pérez-Reverte
- Fiction
- Alfaguara
- ISBN: 9788420471983
- Release Date: 01-01-1970
-Reviewed by: María E. Gentle

The protoganist is a woman called Teresa Mendoza, the girlfriend of an apparent drug trafficker (later we discover he was a DEA agent). She has led a difficult life. Then her boyfriend is killed and she knows she has to flee. A "friend" counsels her to hide in Spain and she decides to head south to Morocco. There she meets Santiago, a Galician who teaches her the business of trafficking in hashish, weapons, tobacco, etc. After Santiago's death, Teresa spends a year in prison, where she meets Patty O'Farrell, with whom–after both have been released–she establishes a good cocaine trafficking business. She makes deals with Italians and Russians and becomes a millionaire. We are told of her romances, triumphs, and deceptions. She returns to México, she testifies against those who tried to hurt her, and then she disappears. The language is incredibly realistic and full of Mexican and Spanish slang. The music of narcocorridos and rancheras permeates the entire novel (in fact, the chapter titles are either song titles or lyrics from the same). The novel is immersed in popular culture and in the demimonde of the two continents (actually, three continents). The action is recounted from the perspective of an unnamed journalist, who functions as an omniscient narrator who knows all the details of her life.