Blood Crime
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A multi-genre gothic novel of the horrific early days of the Spanish Civil War in Barcelona, perfect for fans of Roberto Bolaño and Mario Vargas Llosa.
"Startling . . . Blood Crime (beautifully translated from the Catalan by Maruxa Relaño and Martha Tennent) has a sort of concentrated power that’s rare in horror novels. It’s akin to poetry." —The New York Times Book Review
It is 1936, and Barcelona burns as the Spanish Civil War takes over. The city is a bloodbath. Yet in all this death, the murders of a Marist monk and a young boy, drained of their blood, are strange enough to catch a police inspector’s attention. His quest for justice is complicated by the politics, dangers, and espionage of daily life in a war zone. The Marist brothers of the murdered monk are being persecuted; meanwhile, a convent of Capuchin nuns hides in plain sight, trading favors with the military police to stay alive. In their midst is a thirteen-year-old novice who stumbles into the clutches of the murderer. Can she escape in this city of no happy endings?
Narrated by a vampire who thrives in the havoc of the war, this stunning novel, inspired by the true story of a massacre in the early days of the Spanish Civil War, is a gothic reflection on the nature of monsters, in all their human forms.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set during the Spanish Civil War, Alzamora's extraordinary U.S. debut charts the corrupt political and familial relationships among anarchists, the Catalan government, and hidden religious communities. Brothers of the Marist Order negotiate with the religion-hating anarchists for their escape to France, and Capuchin nuns buy their safety by harboring a deviant bishop obsessed with a musically talented novice. Meanwhile, government officials investigate the murders of a priest and a young boy found bitten and drained of blood. Striking paranormal elements include an eloquently reflective vampire, who takes advantage of Barcelona's chaos, and an automaton horse constructed from the remains of massacre victims. Alzamora deftly balances a swiftly moving, multithreaded plot set firmly in a historical context with a transcendent, nearly timeless exploration of the dark, violent nature of humanity and the vain search for God's mercy, and, in doing so, creatively fulfills the challenge of reinventing gothic horror for a modern age.
