Overview
- Published in France as Reconciliación and accompanied by a Le Figaro interview, the book offers the former monarch’s first detailed public account of the incident.
- Juan Carlos writes that the brothers handled a .22 pistol they thought was safe, a remaining round fired, ricocheted, and struck 14-year-old Alfonso in the forehead as their father held him.
- He asserts that authorities avoided standard inquiries, including an autopsy, and recalls being sent soon after to a military academy.
- The memoir conveys persistent remorse, with Juan Carlos saying he has lived with the echo of the shot and that his brother’s absence left an immense void.
- He revisits receiving $100 million from Saudi King Abdullah in 2008, calling it a mistake rather than a crime, and notes he remains in self-imposed exile in Abu Dhabi after scandals and abdication.