Readings of the year... It is difficult to make a selection among the titles read throughout 2023, but I will highlight these. Of course, they are in a very personal capacity and framed in my favorite genre, which is black, however, they also sneak in a theater piece, of the remembered Sunday Villar, and a romantic novel with a twist to the most immortal love story known, that of Romeo AND Juliet. There are a few brief reviews. Let's hope 2024 continues to bring good readings.
Readings of the year
Eclipse - Jo Nesbø
The first of my readings of the year is, of course, the latest novel by one of my greats, the Norwegian Jo Nesbø, more than mentioned here. He thirteenth title of his most acclaimed series, that of the inspector Harry hole, which returned with force in March to the delight of all its followers who number in the millions. And, as always, it does not disappoint. here is the extended review.
He was not a handsome man, and the colored scar that drew a jot between the corner of his mouth and his ear, as if caught on a hook, did not make things better. There was something about him, something that was both ugly and attractive and a little dangerous.
And we are waiting, because in January a new title, this time horror: The house of the night.
Sybaris - Domingo Villar
Domingo Villar had finished this play before his sudden, unexpected and lamented death in May 2022, which has remained his last legacy. A short piece of black comedy (barely just over 100 pages) that mixes humor with suspense in a story that surprises both for its characters and its elements.
The title refers to the work of a writer, Víctor Morel, which made him a celebrity in the literary world after winning the Nobel Prize, but it is located in a creative lock for years, something that already affects their economic situation. The bank threatens to seize their house and, in addition, they must face the expensive dreams of their brilliant daughter Lola, who wants to go to Oxford to study. But Victor prefers to take refuge in his idealism—and eccentricities, like talking to his cat Capone, who has gone away and whom he is waiting for, or to a mannequin he calls Mrs. Simmons—and neglecting his wife, Laura, rather than face reality. She will be the one who ends up finding an exit in which a very opportune death will appear.
It has already been represented on the tables, in Galicia, and has achieved great success, and is scheduled to arrive in Madrid in June 2024.
The ego atrophies the sense of ridicule. I am not going to risk my reputation for talks in which an adult audience looks at me like children look at a clown.
The Hundred Loves of Juliet —Evelyn Skye
It seems incredible that a story as well-known as Romeo and Juliet can be told the way this North American writer does. Based almost on her own love story with her husband and an extreme situation regarding her health, Skye recreates what could have happened with what Shakespeare wanted to tell if it had been real. So we have some Very particular Romeo and Juliet who meet again over time and in various places and times.
Narrated in the present and from both points of view, it is a very original twist but with the same passion and love of an immortal myth.
I wonder how many lifetimes it will take before I run out of heart.
Make game — Antonio Mancini
The deputy chief Rocco schiavone He is one of those characters that you can love or hate in equal measure, but those of us who love him have put him on a pedestal from which he no longer gets off. And this novel, already the seventh in the series, is further proof. Remains melancholic, irascible, irreverent and unorthodox in everything he does and he maneuvers like no one else between good and evil.
On this occasion he gets into a plot where the gambling, gambling and greed. But you will also have to deal with your past, the one from before and the most recent, where it has suffered betrayals that he neither understands nor forgets, like Caterina's. And with him ghost of his wife whom he also failed and for whose death he feels responsible.
Life does not warn. Sometimes he walks, walks; other times, however, he runs. And we have to go at the same speed.
City of Dreams - Don Winslow
Y I finish this review to my readings of the year with another of the greats of the noir genre, the North American Don Winslow, who was walking around and receiving awards at the festival of Getafe Black last October. To the enormous chagrin of all his readers, he announced that stop writing to dedicate himself to combating the rise of Trumpism in his country. But first, and in April 2024, we will have the third title in this trilogy that makes up Burning city (a great tribute to The Iliad) Y City of Dreams, starring the Irish gangster Danny Ryan.
On this occasion, and after losing another Trojan War with the Italians, Ryan comes to Los Angeles and his story will end up being known in Hollywood, where he will dedicate himself to cinema. The problem is that falls in love again and that they follow on his heels.
Danny relaxes. A bit. The good thing about the Monaguillos is that they are crazy. The bad thing about the Monaguillos is that they are crazy.