Category Archives: Teresa Solana

Review: A Short Cut to Paradise by Teresa Solana

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The private consultants who aren’t quite detectives who made their debut in A Not So Perfect Crime are back for another adventure among the upper echelons of Barcelona society. This time they are tasked with proving that Amadeu Cabestany was not responsible for the murder of famous novelist Marina Dolç The police have arrested him on the grounds that he was heard to threaten Marina and on the night she was killed she had won a prestigious literary award that he was sure he was about to win. But his agent and some-time lover does not believe in his guilt and she turns to Eduard and Borja for assistance. They discover that Amadeu’s alibi is very shaky as there are no witnesses to his leaving the hotel before Dolç’s death and being mugged at a local disco and no one else seems to have much of a motive. They do however start to learn some interesting things about the famous author’s life.

There’s something about a holiday week that calls for lighter than normal reading and I was quite chuffed to find this book unread on my shelves as I had such fond memories of the first book in the series. Happily this one too is clever and funny and thoroughly engaging; perfect for reading on a warm summer day with a glass (or two) of sangria. It’s probably not the book to reach for if you like your mystery solving to be at the forefront for the length of the novel but if you don’t mind the odd (in some cases very odd) tangent or three you could do a lot worse.

Eduard is a former lefty radical who spent 20 years as a middle-class banker before setting up in business with his twin brother Borja (formerly known as Pep). We see most of the tale through his eyes as he recounts the brothers’ attempts to uncover evidence and a suspect or two. Though not as strongly as he was in the first book, he is still vaguely put out by Borja’s social climbing, especially when it requires Eduard to wear classy suits rather than his preferred jeans and otherwise operate out of his comfort zone (heaven forbid he must spend a night in a five-star hotel). But at heart the relationship between the two brothers is sweet and a definite highlight of the novel, being the source of much humour.

The rest of the humour comes from the observations about local society. Although I know nothing about Catalan literary circles the depictions of the social events with public displays of bonhomie hiding private hatreds and petty jealousies was pitch-perfect. I just inserted the names of local authors in the roles of literary versus popular fiction authors to make the humour complete.Solana seems to take great relish in satirising literary circles and I suspect she particularly enjoyed writing the scene in which most of the players are accidentally drugged so that their true natures are on full display.

More poignant moments in the novel come from the short chapters told from perspectives other than Eduard’s. Among the ‘character vignettes’ we meet a man driven to undertake an armed robbery even though he has no criminal record, get a surreal glimpse of prison life for Amadeu who the other prisoners stay clear of due to his resemblance to a movie murderer and his seeming ability to cause grown men to die at his feet and even briefly meet a long-suffering policewoman who has to wrangle a rookie cop with a big mouth. All of these are delightful interludes as well as providing little nuggets of information which help make sense of the overall story.

The crime’s resolution offered a slightly unsatisfactory note in that it didn’t quite make sense but overall I thoroughly enjoyed this slightly surreal and very witty tale of literary madness which gave me one more reason to be glad I’m a reader not a writer.  I am pleased to learn (via excellent Spanish-reading blogger Jose Ignacio at The Game’s Afoot) that a third book has been released. Translation now please.

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A Short Cut to Paradise has been reviewed at Euro Crime, International Noir Fiction (though noir this definitely isn’t) and Lizzie’s Literary Life

I’m slightly cheating in using this as the last book for my What’s In a Name challenge in the category of book with a size in the title. I suppose short isn’t officially a size but it will have to do as the book I was half way through reading (At Close Quarters) fell into the washing up sink and didn’t really recover as well as I might have hoped.

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My rating 3.5/5
Translator Peter Bush
Publisher Bitter Lemon Press [2011]
ISBN 9781904738558
Length 284 pages
Format paperback
Book Series #2 in the Eduard and Borja series
Source I bought it
Creative Commons Licence
This work by http://reactionstoreading.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Crime Fiction Alphabet: J is for Justice

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My dictionary (the Macquarie Third Edition) (and yes I do still have a great, big physical dictionary that I can barely lift it’s so heavy) defines justice at some length but the first entry is the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness. Which makes justice about the most intangible concept I can think of, and certainly not something that the ‘criminal justice system’ seems to have a lot to do with on many occasions. When the kind of lawyer you can afford has more to do with determining your handling in that system than the crime you have committed it can’t really be justice, can it? I have a fondness for those works of crime fiction where the concept of justice is seen as something separate from whatever ‘the system’ might provide. I don’t think I’m advocating becoming a vigilante (though on some days….) but I like exploring the theme anyway.

This post has spoilers so if you haven’t read the book mentioned at the beginning of each paragraph and think you might like to one day, skip ahead.

Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is probably the world’s best known work of crime fiction in which the idea of justice being applied to a criminal outside ‘the system’ is explored. When a man is murdered on the train that Hercule Poirot is traveling on, it falls to his little grey cells to work out that he was killed because of a despicable act he had committed in his past…an act he had not been punished for. Poirot, naturellement mes amis, also identifies who killed the man. But Poirot is asked, begged even, to consider not turning the murderer over to the authorities on the basis that the murder was a just one. And in the end, he agrees. I re-read the book last year and also recently watched the David Suchet TV movie of the story and both times was reminded what a difficult, soul- searching decision Poirot had to put aside his respect for the law in this instance (this version did a much better job of this than the 1970′s film with Albert Finney horribly miscast as Poirot).

Blood of the Wicked by Leighton Gage which I read earlier this year also tackles this theme, in an even more confronting way. The book is the first in the Brazilian series featuring Chief Inspector Mario Silva and it is the policeman’s own back story which addresses this notion of justice. Members of Silva’s family were killed when he was young and the perpetrators never found, until Silva was old enough to start tracking them down himself that is. And dealing out his own brand of justice when he did so. What makes his actions so thought-provoking is that he is a policeman himself now, and an honest one amongst many who are corrupt. Does he get a pass because it was his family? Is it OK to be handing out justice in whatever way you have available – sometimes within the law, sometimes not – as long as it’s morally right as per the definition?

Teresa Solana’s A Not So Perfect Crime is a lighter-hearted take on the theme, involving a pair of Spanish private detectives who are tasked with discovering if the wife of a prominent politician is having an affair which leads them to become involved in a murder case. And when they solve that they have to decide whether justice is served by alerting the authorities.

In Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo we find one of the most violent cases of justice being applied outside the law. The book’s heroine, Lisbeth Salander, having been raped by the legal guardian appointed for her by the State, takes matters into her own hands by luring the man into having another go then turning the tables on him and branding him (literally) as a rapist. It’s one of the most brutal scenes I’ve read in crime fiction and very confronting (not to mention seeing it depicted in the film version). And yet I will admit to feeling quite OK with Lisbeth’s actions upon reflection. I have to think this might be one of those instances where people’s views on whether or not what she did fits within the bounds of justice are determined by their gender? Or not?

What about you? Do you like crime fiction in which justice and the law don’t always follow the same path? Do have a favourite example? Or is justice being handled outside the law just one step away from total anarchy for you? Do you have an example of a book where it’s been done and you’ve disagreed with that?

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Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise is hosting the crime fiction alphabet meme which requires the posting of an article relating to the letter of the week. Do join in the fun by reading the posts and/or contributing one of your own. You don’t have to write every week.

Extreme Reading

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I have officially completed the extreme level of the 2010 Global Reading Challenge.

This required me to read 3 books set in different countries of Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America, South America plus two books set in Antarctica and a wildcard book set in any time or place new to me. Because that wasn’t quite complicated enough I added my own slant that all the books had to be by new-to-me authors.

Participating in this challenge opened my reading up to 21 new authors, many of whom I wouldn’t otherwise have read. For some of them a single exposure will be enough but many will be reappearing on my reading list in the not too distant future. In fact I’ve already read and/or ordered additional titles from several of the terrific authors discovered on my virtual tour around the globe where I met an array of fascinating people and learned a thing or three I didn’t know.

Here’s my final list of 21 books

Africa

Antarctica

Asia

Australasia

Europe

North America

South America

Wildcard (any time or place new to me)

And here are all the places I’ve visited virtually


View Larger Map

Thanks to Dorte of DJs Krimiblog for conceiving of and hosting the 2010 Global Reading Challenge. It was a hoot and lived up to all aspects of its name and I would encourage you to sign up for the 2011 version of the challenge (in which I am reliably informed you won’t have to read books set in Antarctica to be considered an extremist).

Books of the Month – July 2010

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That was Then

July was a month of reading highs and lows for me. Undoubtedly my favourite book for the month (and the year so far) was Adrian Hyland’s Gunshot Road. I know I have become a bit of a broken record but it really is a beautifully written ripping yarn and I encourage everyone to read it. Honourable mentions go to

  • Deon Meyer’s Thirteen Hours (a brilliant thriller with heart and humour on top of great action)
  • Sulari Gentill’s A Few Right Thinking Men (Australian historical fiction combining politics, social commentary and a puzzle in a most satisfactory way)
  • Teresa Solana’s A Not So Perfect Crime (a deliciously funny Spanish tale of brothers, justice and disillusioned left-wingers)

I finished another 8 books besides these but there were a couple of duds and another couple I haven’t found time to review yet.

New Additions

I somehow managed to acquire twice the number of books that I read for the month which just means I’ll have to learn to read faster. Among these treasures are some I’m really looking forward to reading including these:

What to read next?

I’ve been a bit disgruntled and distracted lately so at present am after lighter reading. I plucked the first title in a new cosy series from my TBR pile (Riley Adams’ Delicious and Suspicious) this morning. After that I might tackle one of the political titles I added to my TBR pile after asking for recommendations from you all on what to read while #ausvotes. I have Margaret Truman’s Murder at the Kennedy Center (thanks Margot) which looks like it might be light and political at the same time.

And then I’ll need to pay attention to my two remaining challenges for the year. I’m going to read James Thompson’s Snow Angels for the Scandinavian Reading Challenge (it’s set in Finland) and Charolotte Jay’s Beat Not The Bones (set in Papua New Guinea) for the Global Reading Challenge.

And all the while I’ll be plodding through R J Ellory’s A Simple Act of Violence in audio format. The book won the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award in July this year but at the moment I am struggling to understand why. In audio format the book is 18 hours long and feels every minute of it. I have so far (hour 7+) found it slow going and not terribly compelling. About the best I can say is that it “will do” as accompaniment to the dullest of my housework activities.

Chart of the Month

I’ve not got an actual chart this month but a couple of numbers:

$738.11

Is the amount I spent on all the books I read (including DNFs) in the first 6 months of this year. I only bought 58 of the 85 books but if I average the cost out across all the books read my hobby has cost me an average of $8.68 per book or roughly $1.24 per hour of reading entertainment (I’ve used an average of 7 hours reading time per book).

This is to be compared with

$1,914

which is a rough estimate of the amount I would have spent if I’d bought all 58 purchased books in Australian bookshops. It’s actually a quite conservative estimate of $33 per book because while I might have scored the odd $24 bargain I would have paid $45-50 per audio book (there are 28 of those) and would probably have incurred some hefty special order fees for some of the translated fiction I like to read (one book I ordered from Book Depository for $9.18 would have cost me $53 to ‘special order’ locally).

That’s why I don’t shop in Australian bookstores.

How do you say congratulations in Swedish?

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By now everyone who cares is undoubtedly well aware that while I was sleeping on Friday night Johan Theorin’s The Darkest Room was awarded the 2010 UK Crime Writer’s Association’s International Dagger Award for crime fiction translated into English. My heartfelt congratulations and thanks go to Theorin and his translator Marlaine Delargy for what is a wonderful book and a terrific win. Although it wasn’t my personal pick of the bunch I will repeat what I said when I finished all six of the shortlisted books: there wasn’t a dud in the bunch and any winner is deserving. I congratulate the five nominees (indicated by ** in the list below) and their translators too because they were in excellent company.

To look at the bigger picture for a minute I’m also grateful that there is an award for translated crime fiction at all, and also for the great websites that bring these works to my attention, in particular the excellent Euro Crime which is a brilliant source of reviews and information about what I should spend my pay cheque on each fortnight :)

I am reading my 17th translated book of the year at present. Before the past couple of years I simply did not read translated fiction. I barely even knew it existed really but so far this year I’ve read (in reading order):

Before you think I’m being all lefty intellectual in rating ‘foreign’ stuff above English works I should point out that the above list contains my equally highest rated books of the year as well as by far the worst book I have read this century and everything in between. But being able to read from a much wider range of settings and voices than just the English-writing ones has enriched my reading life, even including the odd dud (it’s The Last Pope in case you’re wondering).

I have another couple of dozen translated titles teetering on mount TBR and that’s without starting to think about the books eligible for next year’s International Dagger award. I wonder what treats I have ahead of me.

Review: A Not So Perfect Crime by Teresa Solana

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In something of a rarity for me I bought this book solely based on the blurb I read at the publisher’s website. It’s the the 13th of 21 books I need to read to complete my extreme global reading challenge and, set in Spain, is the last book on the European leg of this virtual trip.

Eduard and Borja are non-identical twin brothers, though they don’t tell anyone (for reasons that remain a bit murky). Having not seen each other for many years they now run a business together which is a kind of private detective agency (with the emphasis more on the privacy than the detection). Essentially they undertake confidential assignments for Barcelona’s wealthy and influential people. One day a politician with ambitions of his Party’s highest office, Lluis Font, asks them to discover who painted a portrait he found of his wife and to determine if she was having an affair with the painter. He is, he says, troubled by the prospect of a scandal that might damage his chances of further political success. Before long though the brothers find themselves investigating an all together nastier crime than possible infidelity.

It is a book of small details that paint a deliciously funny portrait of the brothers and the wider society in which they live. As the book’s narrator Eduard introduces himself and his brother and explains how it is that no one would know they are brothers unless they were told. Borja is stylish and sophisticated, Eduard prefers corduroy trousers and lace-up shoes; Borja has trotted the globe for twenty years while Eduard worked in a bank; and “Borja is right wing (for aesthetic reasons, he claims) and [Eudard] soldiers on as a non-voting disillusioned left-winger”. How could I not love such a character? Despite these differences the brothers really do get on rather well and as they fumble their way through an investigation which turns more serious than it first appeared their sibling relationship is shown to be quite strong and rather sweet.

I suspect I only scratched the surface of the satirical aspects of the novel as I’m just not that knowledgeable about Catalan politics or society though even I couldn’t miss some of the not-so-gentle gibes as the wealthy were pilloried and juxtaposed with Eduard’s middle class surrounds. These aspects do sometimes take precedence over the mystery, which at times seems like it might never be solved by ‘detectives’ who don’t even carry a camera and who are more concerned with finding a parking spot in crowded Barcelona than employing standard tailing techniques, but there is an old-fashioned whodunnit within this book too. The introduction of a series of possible suspects provides the perfect device for the author to show Catalan society in many of its guises.

Sometimes it takes a while for me to ‘get into’ a book and on other occasions I know within the first few pages that it’s my kind of thing. Happily A Not So Perfect Crime fell into the later category. The book is superbly translated (from the Catalan) by Peter Bush who has retained a speedily flowing and delightfully funny tale. The fact that the story turned out to have a surprisingly thoughtful ending, musing on the subject of justice and whose job it is to hand it out, pushed the book to a four-star rating on my scale. Scrumptious.

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My rating 4/5

Translator Peter Bush Publisher Bitter Lemon Press [this translation 2008, original edition 2006]; ISBN 9781904738343; Length 286 pages

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A Not So Perfect Crime has also been reviewed at Euro Crime (minor spoiler alert though) and Reviewing the Evidence