List price: $14.95
- Pages224
- ISBN9781612190365
- Publication dateFebruary, 2012
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Murder in the Central Committee
A Pepe Carvalho Investigation
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
Translated by Patrick Camiller
Part of Melville International Crime
“A sharp wit and a knowing eye.” —The Sunday Times
At a meeting of the central committee of Spain’s Communist Party, in a room both locked and guarded, general secretary Fernando Garrido is stabbed to death. But the Party refuses to believe it was an inside job.
They turn to former member Pepe Carvalho. But he’s soon out of his depth in unfamiliar Madrid, where he spends nearly as much time investigating the chorizo, lamb-kidneys, and tripe, and the uninspiring selection of wine on offer, as he does murder.
With time out for his signature book burning (Engels’s The Housing Question), cooking (shellfish risotto), and an ill-advised bajativo (cognac, crème de menthe) inspired romp with Gladys, Pepe Carvalho leads a wry and cynical tour through the labyrinth of post-Fascist Spanish politics amid violent jostling for power.
Born in Barcelona in 1939, poet, playwright, essayist, and novelist MANUEL VÁZQUEZ MONTALBÁN was one of Spain’s greatest writers. A well-known gourmand, he also wrote often about food. He is best known for his crime series featuring Pepe Carvalho, which won him international acclaim and numerous awards, including the Planeta Prize and the International Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. He died in 2003 in Hong Kong, on his way home to Barcelona.
“Pepe Carvalho is a phlegmatic investigator. His greatest concern is with his stomach, but when not pursuing delicacies, he can unravel the most tangled of mysteries?” –– The Sunday Times
“Montalbán is a writer who is caustic about the powerful and tender towards the oppressed.”– Times Literary Supplement
