This novel, which earned its author the Fernando Lara Prize, transports us to the literary city of yesteryear with a plot that maintains narrative tension until the very end.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky showed us that crime fiction is the best way to portray a society. We know more about mid-19th-century customs in the Russian Empire from ‘Crime and Punishment’ than from highbrow history books.
It is probably because of this, because of the versatility of the genre, that Sergio Vila-Sanjuán (Barcelona, 1957) has opted for the problem novel. Apart from the fact that I find it stimulating to discover who the villain is, I am grateful to his ‘Misterio en el Barrio Gótico’ for bringing me back to literary Barcelona, with a Proustian effect, with that sweet taste of nostalgia.
The ingredients of the plot are foolproof: anonymous people, mystery, dead bodies, shady characters, historical settings, and a senior cultural journalist responsible for unraveling the enigma.
