<div>During the past fifteen years, one of the most vexing issues facing fledgling transitional democracies around the world--from South Africa to Eastern Europe, from Cambodia to Bosnia--has been what to do about the still-toxic security apparatuses left over from the previous regime. In this now-classic and profoundly influential study, the <i>New Yorker</i>'s Lawrence Weschler probes these dilemmas across two gripping narratives (set in Brazil and Uruguay, among the first places to face such concerns), true-life thrillers in which torture victims, faced with the paralysis of the new regime, themselves band together to settle accounts with their former tormentors. <br><br>"Disturbing and often enthralling."--<i>New York Times Book Review</i><br><br>"Extraordinarily moving. . . . Weschler writes brilliantly."--<i>Newsday</i><br><br>"Implausible, intricate and dazzling."--<i>Times Literary Supplement</i><br><br>"As Weschler's interviewees told their tales, I paced agitatedly, choked back tears. . . . Weschler narrates these two episodes with skill and tact. . . . An inspiring book."--George Scialabba, <i>Los Angeles Weekly</i><br><br></div>