The Strait of Gibraltar, scene of Lejos del Corazón, the new installment of Vila y Chamorro.
Although Vila and Chamorro have not aged as much as years have passed since that first installment of The distant country of ponds in 1998, if there is enough time between them and, above all, many experiences so that each day they become more thoughtful, more mature and less impulsive: Far from the Heart is the delivery number 11 of the series. Silva grows in each of them as a writer and with him his characters.
"Perhaps the greatest challenge in the art of living consists in having discovered a way to remain attached to the days when life begins to send you signals that you have begun to be expendable to it."
This is how Far from the Heart begins, in the words of Bevilacqua, Vila, now second lieutenant of the Civil Guard.
Far from the Heart: The plot.
In this new adventure, they face a very similar and very different world The one they did when they were both much more rookies in the civil guard, Rubén Vila, sergeant, Virginia Chamorro, a guard fresh out of the academy. Set in Cádiz, in San Roque, Sotogrande, La Línea de la concepción and Gibraltar, places where geography and politics allow the drug trafficking generation after generation persists as if time had stopped there.
"They have grown up in an environment and a culture where money is everything: power, prestige, the safe conduct to lead the life that anyone envies."
Beside him, in his shadow, executed in the British lands of Gibraltar, money laundering. Silva shows us how things have also changed, but basically, at least in the way of carrying it out. With the virtual money as the connecting axis of history, Vila and Chamorro face a disappearance wrapped in bitcoins, theft of processing capacity and spoofing of digital identities.
"One of the many reasons to set up a specialized cybercrime jurisdiction once and for all, but you already know it: when it comes to justice, neither the important nor the urgent is addressed."
Crime in an increasingly digital world:
The computer technicians of the Civil Guard have in Far from the heart un weight in conflict resolution according to the social moment we live in, they couldn't have imagined the most famous couple in the Corps when they left the academy.
Bitcoins, digital identity theft, process capacity theft and money laundering make up the plot of Far from the Heart.
Lorenzo Silva is who he is and he can't help it some political joke but that does not hinder at all the good rhythm of the plot.
"Let's see, you two, if you want to dedicate yourselves to making legal reforms, you ask for leave of absence and you appear in the next elections with a list of perroflautas."
The protagonists:
Once again Vila and Chamorro, entertain, engage, more if possible, than in the beginning. The Chamorro's poise and perseverance, Together with Vila's resigned philosophyThey make us reflect as we devour history to find out who is the baddest of the bad guys.
"Although from a certain moment life is this, all the time: facing versions of yourself that you never anticipated and that you don't know how the hell to explain to the kid that is still there, hidden somewhere."
Villa He is still who he is, but much more temperate, continues with his philosophical reflections:
"Moderate ambition is half happiness."
Keep painting defeated tin soldiers:
"Boredom debases," Bevilacqua tells her mother.
Y they both remain two lonely souls for whom relationships do not go well.
"There are things that cease to be because they simply should not continue to be, and resentment is as inappropriate as any form of longing for them."
The beginnings of Vila y Chamorro.
Some editors were wrong when they refused to publish that first story of the two civil guards, The distant country of ponds. It is very easy to see it clearly today, after twenty deliveries and two million books sold, but the truth is that nobody knows how to predict the future no matter how publishers they may be.
Today, the Spanish crime novel would not be the same without Lorenzo Silva, the vision that readers of the Civil Guard have is much closer thanks to Vila, Chamorro and the companions who accompany them in each case.
As Rubén Bevilacqua himself says:
"Life, in compensation for everything it takes away from you, from innocence to the vigor of youth, gives you not only other tools but also the poise to use them, and to do so in a way that is not too infamous."