New Spanish Titles

For a few weeks there have been rumours about strange events that have no explanation. Some pupils claim to have been attacked by an invisible force; others insist that they have seen objects moving on their own through the air, or that they have felt a strange presence stalking them in the corridors. What are we up against here, exactly?

A jungle filled with animals and the occasional human being, where some live through exciting, at times dangerous situations, all of which are narrated by Horacio Quiroga with a large dose of humour.

The book opens with a horrific scene: a bomb blast in Madrid. The characters appear gradually, in real time, during the hours following the explosion. The repercussions of the bomb mingle with personal stories at a frantic pace. A woman wounded in the attack is physically identical to Ana, head of the Police Forensic Unit in Madrid.

'The Year of Los Saicos' uses sharp humour to paint a portrait of the internal workings of Liman society in 1964 (the year the eponymous rock group first came to prominence), trapped between respect for hypocritical rules and the degradation of its members. A society in which, as one of the characters observes, 'everybody lies', and the act of lying has become a questionable survival tactic.