Set against the political backdrop of the Moscow Show Trials and the exile of Leon Trotsky in Mexico, a Spanish agent of Joseph Stalin¿s notorious secret spy ring, the GPU, is sent to assassinate Trotsky. After killing the exiled Bolshevik, Ramon Mercader has spent twenty years in a Mexican prison. The Prophet of Sorrow is a tale of suspense, courage, and love as recounted by the assassin. The main characters are involved in the tumultuous civil war in Spain, recruited as Soviet spies, trained in Russia, and unleashed as part of Stalin¿s private army of gangsters and murderers. Different characters that represent the middle of the twentieth century make cameo appearances in the novel.