Luiz Fernando Guimarães

Brazillian urban guerrilla fighters kidnap the American Ambassador. Now, the diplomat's life hangs in the balance - helplessly caught between a government unwilling to cooperate - and his fear of the captors themselves.

Noronha, a low-class civil servant and his wife Gorda have four elder daughters. Silene, the youngest, is expelled from boarding school for killing a cat and newborns.