Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The milieu is reused with flair in
The Truth About the Savolta Case
, while
The Year of the
Flood
adds a light touch to an unusual amorous entanglement in 1950s Barcelona.
RaulNuñez
TheLonelyHeartsClub
.Aparadeofgrotesqueandhard-bittencharactershaunt
the city in this oddball but likeable romantic comedy.
ColmTóibín
TheSouth
.BarcelonaprovidesthebackgroundforTóibín'sfirstnovelaboutan
Irish woman looking for a new life.
Carlos Ruiz Záfon
The Shadow of the Wind
. Top holiday read is the international best-
seller by the Barcelona-born, one-time LA screenwriter Záfon. It's a Gothic literary thriller
set in the aftermath of the Civil War, full of atmospheric Barcelona locations, and it gener-
ated rave reviews, not to mention selling over ten million copies worldwide. Záfon followed
up with a similarly intricate, similarly successful plot-within-plot prequel called
TheAngel's
Game
.
THRILLERS AND CRIME NOVELS
BernadoAtxaga
TheLoneMan
.ThenotedBasquewritersethiswell-receivedpsychologic-
al thriller during the 1982 World Cup, when two ETA gunmen hole up in a Barcelona hotel.
Manuel Vasquez Montalban
Murder in the Central Committee
,
Southern Seas
,
The
Angst-Ridden Executive
,
An Olympic Death
,
Offside
,
The Man of My Life
and
Tatoo
. Mont-
alban's greatest creation, the fast-living gourmand-detective Pepe Carvalho, ex-Communist
and CIA agent, first appeared in print in 1972, investigating foul deeds in the city in a series
of wry and racy Chandleresque thrillers.
Murder in the Central Committee
is a good place
to start, as Carvalho confronts his Communist past.
Southern Seas
won the Planeta, Spain's
biggest literary prize, while the city's businesses, institutions and events come under typical
scrutinyin
TheAngst-RiddenExecutive
,
AnOlympicDeath
and
Offside
.Twenty-first-century
Catalan politics and business come under the spotlight in the last Carvalho novel,
The Man
ofMyLife
,while the early
Tatoo
,published forthe first time inEnglish in2008,plunges you
right back into “sex, death and food in 1970s Barcelona”.
Teresa Solana
A Not So Perfect Crime; A Shortcut to Paradise
. In her first two Barcelona
noir novels, Solana introduces bumbling detective twins Eduard and Pep - they don't look
alike and they don't solve cases, but they do skewer contemporary high society, whether in
politics (
A Not So Perfect Crime
) or literary circles (
A Shortcut to Paradise
).
Barbara Ellen Wilson
GaudíAfternoon
. Pacy feminist thriller making good use of Gaudí's
architecture as a backdrop for deception and skulduggery.
