I am an enthusiastic fan of mystery novels written by Spanish writers. They always seem to have enough darkness to create tension, and brilliant, troubled characters struggling to find ways to deal with that tension. I suppose that's true of the genre in general, but the Spanish seem to be particularly good at it.

Even the Darkest Night is the first of three mystery novels by Javier Cercas. The good news is that there are at least two more out there. The bad news is that I don't think either has been translated into English yet. I suppose I can try to struggle through the Spanish over the summer, but I know I'll miss a lot. My Spanish was never more than competent at its best, and it's been 25+ years since I had even that competence.

The detective here is Melchor Marín, a police officer originally working in Barcelona who—for reasons I won't reveal—is forced to move temporarily to a small-town police force. His back story fascinates. He was raised by his prostitute mother and has no idea who his father is. As a teen he spent time in prison for work he'd done for a drug cartel. While in prison, he read Hugo's Les Misérables, which changed his life in two ways. First, it gave him a passion for 19th Century novels. Second, he came to identify with the obsessive Inspector Javert whose concept of justice is rigid and perpetual. His mother is murdered while he's doing time, and when he leaves prison, he trains to be a police officer, determined to set the world to rights in the way he sees fit, which is not necessarily by the books.

Even the Darkest Night opens in the rural community where he now works on the night of a particularly violent pair of murders. Evidence is scant, suspects are numerous, and higher ups decide to abandon the case once it stops drawing public attention. In a way, we know what the plot will be: Melchor will continue investigating against the instructions of his superiors, unexpected twists (some big ones) occur, and even once Melchor thinks he knows what's happened, he still feels as though he's missing a key part of the solution.

If you like mystery novels that are decidedly not cozy and that balance careful plotting with an eccentric and dangerous central character, you're in for a treat. You may also want to start brushing up on your Spanish because you'll definitely want to read the two novels that follow, and who knows when they'll be available in English? ( )

Thot v intelligent. Good story. Strong writing ( )

Terra Alta
Javier Cercas
Publicado: 2019 | 247 páginas
Novela Intriga Policial
Serie: Terra Alta #1 /s2GYnqHua_G4

Un crimen terrible sacude la apacible comarca de la Terra Alta: los propietarios de su mayor empresa, Gráficas Adell, aparecen asesinados tras haber sido sometidos a atroces torturas. Se encarga del caso Melchor Marín, un joven policía y lector voraz llegado desde Barcelona cuatro años atrás, con un oscuro pasado a cuestas que le ha convertido en una leyenda del cuerpo y que cree haber enterrado bajo su vida feliz como marido de la bibliotecaria del pueblo y padre de una niña llamada Cosette, igual que la hija de Jean Valjean, el protagonista de su novela favorita: «Los miserables». Partiendo de ese suceso, y a través de una narración trepidante y repleta de personajes memorables, esta novela se convierte en una lúcida reflexión sobre el valor de la ley, la posibilidad de la justicia y la legitimidad de la venganza, pero sobre todo en la epopeya de un hombre en busca de su lugar en el mundo.

Melchor, hijo de una prostituta, fue a la cárcel cuando era adolescente, condenado or trabajar para un cartel de la droga colombiano. Tras las rejas, leyó un libro que cambió su vida: Los Miserables. Luego, su madre fue asesinada. Decidió convertirse en policía.
Este caso, en la Terra alta, una región remota de la Cataluña rural, el asesinato de un hombre local adinerado y su esposa, pondrá la vida de Melchor patas arriba una vez más.

"It's true that he took justice into his own hands, but also that there was no other way to get it; it's true that he did not respect the forms of justice, but also true that would have been impossible to get justice by respecting them....Should his crime go unpunished for that reason?"

Described as a crime novel (Cercas's first attempt at writing a pure crime novel, and the first of a series), this book is that, but it is also more. As the book opens, Melchor Marin is coming to the end of his night shift as a detective in the police department of small town Terra Alta when he is notified of a horrific double murder. The victims are an elderly couple, the wealthiest in town and owners of the business that employs many of the town's residents. Over the course of the novel, as Melchor works on solving the crime we get his backstory, which is interesting indeed. The novel is full of literary references, and Melchor is influenced in particular by Les Miserables. There is a lot of pondering of big questions of justice and revenge, and whether Inspector Javert is a "good" guy or a "bad" guy in his pursuit of Jean Valjean. The location is important too, as Terra Alta is where the Battle of the Ebro took place in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War.

As I was reading it, I found that it moved very slowly, at least for a crime novel. But it really is much more, and as I thought about it afterwards, it has really resonated with me. It won the prestigious Spanish literary award Premio Planeta for 2019.

3 1/2 stars

First Line: "Melchor is still in his office simmering on the low flame of his own impatience waiting for the night shift to end when the phone rings."

Last Line: "'Home,' Melchor says, 'To Terra Alta.'" ( )