Pepe Carvalho Mystery
5 total works
The lights go out during a meeting of the Central Committee of the Spanish Communist Party - Fernando Garrido, the general secretary, has been murdered. Pepe Carvalho, who has worked for both the Party and the CIA, is well suited to track down Garrido's murderer. Unfortunately, the job requires a trip to Madrid - an inhospitable city where food and sex is heavier than in Pepe's beloved Barcelona.
Cover copy The body of Stuart Pedrell, a powerful businessman, is found in a Barcelona suburb. He had disappeared on his way to Polynesia in search of the visionary spirit of Paul Gauguin. Who better to find the killer of a dead dreamer than Pepe Carvalho, overweight bon viveur and ex-communist? The trail for Pedrell?s killer unearths a world of disillusioned lefties, graphic sex and nouvelle cuisine - major ingredients of post-Franco Spain. A tautly-written mystery with an unforgettable - and highly unusual - protagonist.
'Because you use your centre forward to make yourselves feel like gods who can manage victories and defeats, from the comfortable throne of minor Caesars: the centre forward will be killed at dusk.' To revive its sagging fortunes, Barcelona FC has bought the services of Jack Mortimer, European Footballer of the Year. No sooner has Mortimer taken possession of his company Porsche than death threats start arriving. Are they a hoax, the work of a loner or are they connected to the awesome real estate speculation that is tearing Barcelona apart? In a period of turmoil where Catalan pimps and racketeers are being hustled off the streets by crime syndicates from the Middle East, Pepe Carvalho is thinking of retirement, but the need to save the soul of his beloved Barcelona forces him to take on a case that can only end in disaster.
Antonio Jauma, an old acquaintance, dies desperately wanting to get in touch with Pepe Carvalho. Jauma's widow has good reason to believe that her husband's death is not what it seems. And who better to investigate than Carvalho, a private eye with a CIA past and contacts with the Communist Party.
When Pepe Carvalho's uncle asks him to find his son, Ra?l, in Buenos Aires, Pepe is reluctant. All he knows about Argentina is 'tango, Maradona, and the disappeared' and he has no desire to find out more. But family is family and soon Carvalho is in Buenos Aires, getting more caught up in Argentina's troubled past than is good for anybody. As he gets nearer to finding Raul, he begins to realise the full impact of the traumas caused by a military junta who went so far as to kidnap the children of the political activists they tortured. A few excellent tangos, bottles of Mendoza Cabernet Sauvignon and a sexy semiotician are no compensation for the savage brutality Carvalho experiences in his attempt to come to grips with Argentina's recent history.