What Mikel Santiago books have you read? If you are a fan of his pen, it is most likely that all those he has published, both in novels and stories, have fallen through your hands. But it is also possible that you have just met him, or that you did not know him and he is calling your attention.
Anyway, Today we are going to stop to learn about Mikel Santiago, his books and his pen. Do you want to discover this author? Then keep reading us.
Who is Mikel Santiago?
Mikel Santiago Garaikoetxea is a writer. His literary genres include thriller, black novel and fantasy. She was born in 1975 in Portugalete and studied at a private-converted educational center, to later access the University of Deusto where he graduated in Sociology.
However, he has not always lived in Spain. For about 10 years he traveled and lived in Ireland and the Netherlands. Today he permanently resides in Bilbao.
In addition to being a writer, he also participates in a rock band. And besides, he also makes his first steps in the software sector.
The first time he "saw faces" with the publication, he did it through the Internet. At that time He started publishing stories and stories, he even self-published four of his books full of stories: Story of a perfect crime, The island of a hundred eyes, The black dog and Night of Souls and other horror stories. Of them, 3 were in the 10 best sellers in the United States.
This made publishers notice him, to the point that, In 2014, Ediciones B published his first novel, The last night in Tremore Beach. More than 40.000 copies have been sold to date, and it has been translated into more than 20 languages. Even Amenábar has taken over the rights to adapt it to a movie or series.
A year later, he published his second novel, El mal camino, and this has been the case in the following years, where he has had publications by publisher almost annually.
Mikel Santiago: books and stories you should know
Now that you know a little more about this author, we want to focus on the different novels and stories that you can find on the market.
The last night at Tremore Beach
Published in 2014, as we have mentioned before, it was his first novel published by editorial.
We leave you the synopsis: «The fascinating story of a composer who tries to recover his inspiration in a house on the coast of Ireland.
Everything seems perfect... until the night of the big storm arrives.
A composer who has lost inspiration. A secluded house on an Irish beach. A stormy night that can change everything.
Peter Harper is a prestigious soundtrack composer who, after a traumatic divorce, takes refuge in a remote corner of the Irish coast to regain his inspiration. The Tremore Beach house, secluded on a vast, secluded beach, seems like the right place to do it."
The bad way
A year later, El mal camino appeared. Is a self-contained story, which means that it can be read independently.
what's it about? Here we leave you the synopsis: «On a rural road in the south of France, a man emerges from the darkness and unleashes a series of strange events, turning the lives of writer Bert Amandale and his friend Chucks Basil, a rock star in France, into a nightmare. low hours.
Santiago uses an idyllic and disturbing setting, in the heart of Provence, to trap us in a story that is read compulsively and in which the fate of characters marked by their mistakes beats in the background.»
Tom Harvey's Strange Summer (2017), Ediciones B
This novel took a little longer to appear, since it came out in 2017 (and not in 2016). However, it was also a complete success.
«An idyllic place bathed in the blinding light of the Mediterranean. A gallery of quirky, charismatic and suspicious characters. A "who-did-it" at the rhythm of a thriller in which everyone can be guilty until the truth is revealed.
«I was in Rome when Bob Ardlan called me. To be exact: I was with a woman in Rome when Ardlan called me. So when I saw his name on the phone screen I thought, “What the hell, Bob. You don't call me in an eternity and you come to ruin the best moment of the summer for me. And I let it ring.
Two days later, I learned that Bob had fallen from the balcony of his Tremonte mansion within minutes of dialing my number. Or maybe they had pushed him? I had no choice but to step on the accelerator of the car and stand there to ask a few questions.»»
The island of the last voices
Published in 2018, This novel is said to be one of the author's weakest, since they do not put it at the level of the previous ones. Although it is well written, it can become heavy and less addictive.
«An island lost in the North Sea.
The storm is closing in on St. Kilda and almost everyone has fled on the last ferry. There are no more than fifty people left on the island, including Carmen, a Spanish woman who works at the small local hotel, and a handful of fishermen. They will be the ones who find a mysterious metallic container next to the cliffs.
A strange box brought by the waves.
Through characters full of nuances and secrets, trapped in the heart of the storm, Mikel Santiago asks us the question that hovers over every page of the novel...
How far would you be willing to go to survive?
The liar
Again with a break in 2019, The Liar came out in 2020 and, in this case, we must warn you that it is the first book of the Illumbe Trilogy, so it is essential to read it before all the other books that we are going to discuss below.
«In a small town in the Basque Country, no one has secrets from anyone.
Or maybe yes?
There are novels that are impossible to leave once you have read the first pages. Stories that reinvent the suspense and make the reader wonder every time a chapter ends. In this absolutely original and addictive thriller, Mikel Santiago breaks the limits of psychological intrigue with a story that explores the fragile borders between memory and amnesia, truth and lies.
In the first scene, the protagonist wakes up in an abandoned factory next to the corpse of an unknown man and a stone with traces of blood. When he flees, he decides to try to piece together the facts himself. However, he has a problem: he barely remembers anything that happened in the last forty-eight hours. And what little he does know is better not to tell anyone.
This is how this thriller begins that takes us to a coastal town in the Basque Country, between winding roads on the edge of cliffs and houses with walls cracked by stormy nights: a small community where, only apparently, no one has secrets from anyone».
In the middle of the night
In 2021 the second part of the Illumbe trilogy saw the light of day, in this case with "In the middle of the night."
"A rock band. A concert. A missing girl.
More than twenty years have passed, but there are nights that never end.
Can one night mark the fate of all who lived it? More than twenty years have passed since the declining rock star Diego Letamendia last performed in his hometown of Illumbe. That was the night of the end of his band and his group of friends, and also that of the disappearance of Lorea, his girlfriend. The police never managed to clarify what happened to the girl, who was seen rushing out of the concert hall, as if fleeing from something or someone. After that, Diego embarked on a successful solo career and never returned to town.
When one of the gang members dies in a strange fire, Diego decides to return to Illumbe. Many years have passed and the reunion with old friends is difficult: none of them is still the person they were. Meanwhile, suspicion grows that the fire was not accidental. Is it possible that everything is related and that, so long later, Diego can find new clues about what happened with Lorea?
Mikel Santiago returns to the setting in the imaginary town of the Basque Country, where his previous novel, The Liar, already took place, this story marked by a past that could have terrible consequences in the present. This masterful thriller envelops us in the nostalgia of the XNUMXs as we unravel the mystery of that night that everyone struggles to forget.
Among the dead
The last of Mikel Santiago's books, to date, is Among the Dead, published in June 2022 and which marks the end of the trilogy that began with The Liar.
«The long-awaited closure of the «Illumbe Trilogy» arrives: a masterful thriller, full of mysteries and surprising twists whose key could be in the question that beats in the soul of this story: is it possible to bury a secret forever?
There are dead who never rest, and perhaps they should not until justice is served. Nobody knows this better than Nerea Arruti, an agent of the Ertzaintza in Illumbe, a lonely woman who also drags her own corpses and ghosts from the past.
A forbidden love story, a supposedly accidental death, a mansion overlooking the Bay of Biscay where everyone has something to hide and a mysterious character known as the Raven whose name appears as a shadow throughout the novel. These are the ingredients of an investigation that will become more complicated page after page and in which Arruti, as readers will soon discover, will be much more than the agent in charge of the case.
Story of a perfect crime
Published in 2010, it was actually a story. Right now can be found on the Internet to be read.
what's it about? «My name is Eric Rot and I write these last lines of my life to confess: I am a murderer.
I did. The mate. Linda Fitzwilliams is dead. Neither did she run away with her lover, nor did she play hide and seek to irritate her family, as the magazines of the pink world pointed out at the time... »
The island of a hundred eyes
Also published in 2010 by the author himself, this story takes us to Ireland, at the turn of the century. There, a rescue boat reaches the small town of Dowan with a terrible secret that an aristocrat and the town doctor will have to reveal.
The Stench and other mystery stories
In this case it is an unknown book (it jumped out at us when we were looking for books by Mikel Santiago). In it you have a compilation of different stories and mystery tales of the author.
the black dog
Two years after the previous stories, we have The Black Dog. In this case, Mikel Santiago takes us to the Second World War through the story of an old soldier who tells Paul, the young nurse of the sanatorium in which he is located.
Night of Souls and other horror stories
«The house appeared just when Daniel and Pía were about to give up hope, during their backpacking trip through a harsh South American desert. An old travel guide had led them there, but when they arrive, the strange inhabitants of the place are reluctant to let them pass. "The inn has been closed for many years" they are told.
A mysterious circle of stones, closed windows and a single rule: «Do not go out at night» Nights that are flooded with ancient nightmares that seemed forgotten and sounds and shadows outside. Daniel and Pía will discover very soon that they should never have crossed the desert during the night of souls».
Una horror story and to make your hair stand on end with each page you turn.
The footprint
Published in 2019, gathers eight of his stories and short stories which he wrote and blogged for his readers.
How many books by Mikel Santiago have you read?
Apart from these books, Mikel Santiago has also participated as a scriptwriter or conductor in series and programs. He has even recently presented "Tricia", a ghost story that you can listen to on Storytel. Have you read them all?