This Paul Hollis thriller is told mostly from the
first-person perspective of a man identified simply as Doc, his full real name
not given at any point in the novel, the first chapter opening with him at a
sixteenth-century cathedral where the funeral of a child is occurring. The
initial setting is the twilight years of Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s
Spain, with terrorists assassinating his Prime Minister, Luis Carrero Blanco,
with the last major murder of a European head of state having occurred back in 1934.
It is said that Franco was merely ruling as Spain’s regent since the last
monarch before he came to power never officially abdicated, and true to
history, the country’s royal restoration is imminent.
Throughout the novel, Hollis gives occasional historical
tidbits of his story’s various settings, including Navarre in Spain, spread on
both sides of the Alba River and at the time of the novel is home to 140,000
citizens with summer tourism peaking at 20,000 tourists. He moves to Pamplona,
with those responsible for the Prime Minister’s death supposedly being a Basque
nationalist terrorist group, Euskadi Ta
Askatasuna (ETA). The novel ultimately reveals that Doc earned his nickname due
to his work at keeping a mortuary clean, and he is ultimately paired with a
woman named Zita.
The setting
eventually shifts to France, specifically Paris, with more occasional tidbits
such as the city’s Gate du Nord being among the busiest train stations in
Europe, with French President Georges Pompidou to be a keynote speaker at the
imminent opening of the Charles du Gaulle Airport, specifics given about its
capacities. The novel ultimately reaches a satisfying conclusion, although Doc
himself remains something of an enigma, and the book is regularly peppered with
Spanish and French conversations, sometimes with translations, but at other
times without. Even so, this thriller is recommended reading.
Author's Bio:
Having lived in twelve states and eventually working in all fifty, he fell in love early with seeing the world on someone else’s money. Since then, he has lived abroad nine years while working in forty-eight countries, spanning five continents. These experiences helped Paul Hollis bring his own unique viewpoint to his mesmerizing thrillers.
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