An old man in a beat-up car chases down a purse-snatcher and seems like a Good Samaritan—until he runs into the thief, killing him. That's just the first surprise in this taut political thriller. When police discover guns in the trunk and an arsenal at the man’s home, his identity is revealed in the newspapers. He is Gerardo, a revolutionary thought to have died during Chile’s violent early-1970s revolution. Gerardo’s sudden reappearance shocks Inés, a powerful businesswoman, and her lawyer husband, Justo. And so Spider begins its frantic race along parallel storylines. It turns out that Inés and Justo had recruited Gerardo into, as they say, “inventing” a war against the Socialist Allende government and carrying out its destructive goals. We see the fevered and intense relationships between young Ines, Justo, and Gerardo while their older counterparts must deal with the consequences of their own youthful idealism.—Dave Nuttycombe