Even the Darkest Night: A Terra Alta Investigation

Description

*Financial Times Best Summer Books 2022* "A gem of a book, easily the best I've read this year. A contemporary police procedural with a literary edge. I was rooting for the flawed, but deeply compassionate Melchor Marin from the first page to the last. Highly recommended" M W Craven A Terra Alta Investigation. Winner of Spain's biggest literary prize - the Premio Planeta When Melchor goes to investigate the horrific double-murder of a rich printer and his wife in rural Cataluna nothing quite adds up. The young cop from the big city, hero of a foiled terrorist attack, has been sent to Terra Alta till things quieten down. Observant, streetwise and circumspect, Melchor is an also an outsider. The son of a Barcelona prostitute who never knew his father, Melchor rapidly fell into trouble and was jailed at 19, convicted of driving for a Colombian drug cartel. While he was behind bars, he read Hugo's Les Miserables, and then his mother was murdered. Admiring of both Jean Valjean and Javert - but mostly the relentless Javert - he decided to become a policeman. Now he is out for revenge, but he can wait, and meanwhile he has discovered happiness with his wife, the local librarian, and their daughter, who is, of course, called Cossette. Slowly at first, and then more rapidly once ordered to abandon the case, he tracks the clues that will reveal the larger truth behind what appears at first to be a cold-blooded, professional killing. Translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean

Javier Cercas was born in 1962. He is a novelist, short-story writer and columnist, whose books include Soldiers of Salamis (which sold more than a million copies worldwide, won six literary awards in Spain and was filmed by David Trueba), The Tenant and The Motive, The Speed of Light and The Anatomy of a Moment. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in Barcelona.

The portrait of a man who becomes a hero inspite of himself * ABC. * A tense thriller from the first page to the last * Vanguardia. * Even The Darkest Night is a gem of a book, easily the best I've read this year. A contemporary police procedural with a literary edge. I was rooting for the flawed, but deeply compassionate Melchor Marin from the first page to the last. Highly recommended -- M W Craven A wonderful novel. I look forward to many more Melchor stories -- A N Wilson * Tablet * The first in what promises to be an excellent series -- Guardian * Laura Wilson * Striking -- Barry Forshaw * Financial Times * Stays in the memory . . . Cercas perfectly captures the fearful mood of a town in rural Catalonia after the crime. He has also come up with an unusual detective -- Joan Smith * Sunday Times * Cercas plays fast and loose with literary conventions . . . it will be fascinating to see how the character of Marin, a knight in tarnished armour, develops -- Mark Sanderson * The Times *