I found this a diverting read, but, unlike most reviewers, only two-dimensional in its pleasures. The reason is that we aren't told anything about the contents of what Littín filmed, or much even about Chile during that era, other than that the police were perhaps nicer to foreigners (or those whom they believed to be foreigners) than Littín might have expected. Also contrary to some other reviewers, I found the preface by Francisco Goldman to be very helpful for putting the book into context: After the 1973 coup in Chile, García Márquez had vowed not to write fiction until the junta fell. But he had misjudged Pinochet's longevity in power, and in 1979 GM announced that he had begun work on a book of short stories -- a capitulation that actually disappointed many of his fans, resulting in some bad PR for the writer. After Pinochet had embarrassed GM for staying in power so successfully, and after GM had become "el Nobel" in 1982, this 1986 book was GM's way to embarrass Pinochet as "an act of personal revenge and protest."
This personal purpose is the source of the book's limitations. GM focuses most on showing how Littín was able to fool the junta's security apparatus -- getting in and out of Chile a couple of times and even shooting documentary footage in the presidential palace. At the time this nose-thumbing story may have been a sufficiently electrifying justification for a book, but to a reader today interested in what was happening in Chile it is a little frustrating. Even considering the book as drama rather than history, while GM does engage us with the pain and comedy of Littín's life in disguise, there are too many other characters of whom we're told almost nothing: such as Elena, a plaid-skirted young woman in the underground who posed as Littín's wife, or the pretty nun who appears more than once in intrigue-drenched circumstances. These characters aren't developed not only because the book is based solely on a couple days' interviews with Littín, but because their backstories weren't necessary for achieving GM's aims. Featuring cloak-and-dagger tactics, many close shaves, and even its own Rollin/Paris (and, briefly, Cinnamon) characters, the book is fun in the way that an old fake-out-the-dictator episode of Mission Impossible is fun -- and thanks to the way GM chose to tell this true story, it's almost as fluffy as one of those scripts, too. Nonetheless, a good choice if you're in the mood for something light.