Die in november is the last novel of Guillermo Galvan. In the market since last day 13, it is the third story that stars the detective Carlos lombardi, after Mowing time y The Virgin of the bones. And surely there will be more because Galván has found a good formula where it combines an interesting plot, excellent setting and solid characters. This is my review.
Guillermo Galvan
Valencian writer and journalist with a long literary career and recognition by critics and readers, he has to his credit titles as different as Butterfly Shadows: The Epic of Leovigildo, King of the Visigoths, Before I say goodbye to you, From the ashes, The gaze of Saturn, The air leaves no trace o Call me judas. In 2019 he began what is now a series of 3 novels starring former police officer and detective Carlos Lombardi, which have brought him great success.
Having arrived in Guillermo Galvan thanks to a friend, who gave me a sample of The Virgin of the bones. But since I usually start a series at the beginning, I got hold of Mowing time. The result: that I got hooked on that Madrid from the early 40s so well described through very well defined characters, both main and secondary, in a very good plot as well.
Now, with the fashion of labeling everything, this subgenre is called totalitarianism Blackthat is, novels with a police plot set in Nazi Germany (such as Bernie Gunther's, Philip kerr), the Soviet Union (Arkady Renko, of Martin Cruz-Smith) or, in the case of Galván, Franco's Spain in the postwar period.
En The Virgin of the bones Galván transferred the action to a town, specifically Aranda de Duero, developing another label of the genre, that of rural noir. And he continued to maintain the bar that does not lower in this new story.
Die in november
We are in the Madrid from 42, Full of WWII in Europe and the rarefied, dark and needy post-war environment here. AND Carlos lombardi, a former police officer and now working at the Hermes detective agency, is involved in the investigation of two cases with no apparent relationship: that of the disappearance of a German citizen and the discovery of the corpse of a drowned girl.
At the same time, we know more about your personal history, with a beginning where his ex-wife Begoña appears to clarify the situation in which they find themselves. They are also still out there effective and loyal team of collaborators and their boss and friend Balbino Ulloa.
And in that Madrid of more gray than light there is no lack from the Gestapo, AbwehrBritish intelligence agents and even those of the Pinkerton U.S. Joins certain businessman from very high places, and a supporter of Lombardi, who will reveal more personal information as relevant as it is destabilizing for the detective. And they all coincide in a plot where they mix prostitution, cinema, black market and espionage, but whose conclusion is the least.
Lombardi and postwar Madrid
Because the rest are the heavyweights that stand out in this novel. Lombardi, for its background so full of rage and containment at the same time before the situation of the country and the life in more than gray of a Madrid plagued with consequences after the civil war.
Disenchanted but surviving as he can in a difficult balance between his past after his time in prison and a horizon that seems to open up at the end of the novel. And they are his eyes show us that Madrid, in the excellent setting that Galván recreates, even more vivid because of the narration in the present that always brings action and images closer together. A merit more than even those of us who do not sympathize with that narrative present wraps us with a magnificent handling also of language.
Ultimately
Una solvent history that masterfully mixes the police, historical and espionage genres. And surely there will be more.