AUTHOR: Iñaqui Rubio
PUBLISHER: Editorial Comanegra
GENRE: Crime Chronicles
READER’S NAME:
DATE: May 23, 2022
In precise journalistic style, Catalan author Iñaki Rubio narrates the chronicle of a fratricide that took place in 1943, in this independent principality situated between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains. Pere Areny Aleix, scion of a wealthy Andorran family, killed his older brother Anton, arguably, to inherit the family’s property. He was found guilty and condemned to death. This was the last time that the death penalty was administered in Andorra, at a dangerous time in History when the neutral country was caught between World War II and Franco’s dictatorship in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War.
The author had access to never-before-seen information on the case, the family, and the political climate, concluding that Pere had serious mental problems and was not master of his own actions, therefore, the sentence should have been changed to life in prison. However, the complicity of the Andorran institutions and the silence of the Andorran people let to a “second murder.”
The book reads as a murder mystery in which the author systematically follows all clues and investigates the crime motives. Pere’s fear of Germans following war refugees and finding them in the ancestral family home took a heavy toll on his unbalanced psyche, precipitating the bloody events. A previous book on the case, Antoni Morell’s 1981 novel Set lletanies de mort (Seven Death Litanies) helps Rubio to set the record straight, and it is cited in the chronicle to support Rubio’s arguments for a third-degree murder sentence instead.
The author’s powerful descriptive prose depicting the Andorran geography frames the events and engages the reader as the story unfolds, bringing an allegorical sense of belonging to a particular place and time, and mirroring the quest for the recognition of a border identity, as seen in others of his books such as Bestiari pirinenc (Pyrenean Bestiary) (2021.) “Per ara només tenim un Citroën Traction Avant que recorre la carretera d'Andorra buscant el camí de França a boca foscant. Quan les últimes clarors de ponent retallen el perfil fosc de les muntanyes i per l'est s'acosta la negror de la nit, mentre les ombres guanyen les valls, com un espectre de la guerra la silueta negra de la berlina ressegueix els sinuosos revolts d'Andorra” (p. 50) (At present we just got a Citroën Traction Avant running in the dark along the road to Andorra searching for the road to France. When the last western lights cut the dark profile of the mountains and to the east looms the blackness of the night, while the shadows sweep over the valleys, the sedan’s black silhouette follows Andorra’s winding turns like a ghost of war.”)
Despite the meticulous writing and plot development, this chronicle will not engage the American reader since the time and events being described are far away in the past and full of localisms unknown to the American public. The characters neither were historical figures nor had a prominent role in the Andorran society of the time. Their profiles have been drawn through trivial anecdotes and family gossip of little relevance. Other Catalan authors such as Mercè Balada (Catalunya en negre. 150 anys de crims i criminals. “Dark Catalonia. 150 Years of Crimes and Criminals,” 2017) and Carles Porta (Crims amb Carles Porta. “Murders with Carles Porta,” 2020) would have a stronger appeal to a larger American audience.
Iñaki Rubio is a writer and educator. Several of his previous books have been awarded Literary Prizes, and his articles and interviews are widely read in Andorra where he lives. He is a member of the Andorran National Commission for UNESCO.
