Crime & mystery
February 2020
A murder mystery, a tenacious detective, and the bourgeoisie of early twentieth-century Barcelona.
Barcelona, 1909. Countess Victoria of Cardona is murdered during a lavish masked ball at the Lyceum opera house. She is discovered with a blow to her head and wearing a valuable ruby ring that had gone missing a long time before. This would not be the only death at the Grand Opera House. In- spector Ignasi Requesens undertakes the investigation, but there seem to have been no witnesses to the crime. Members of the city’s nobility, choralists, entrepreneurs, scroung- ers, stagehands, prostitutes, bastards, mediums, and social climbers parade through the pages of this thriller, which beyond the mystery of the Countess’ murder, immerses the reader in the convulsive years of turn-of-the-century Barce- lona. Of course, nothing is what it seems, and despite the silence of those implicated, Requesens finds answers that will compromise the good name of some of Barcelona’s most eminent families. Will they allow the inspector to re- veal the truth behind the Countess of Cardona’s murder? Who was behind the disappearance of the ruby ring and the death of the Lyceum’s manager? Who really was Victoria de Cardona and what secrets was she hiding?
