The Whispering City

September 14, 2015
The murder of Barcelona socialite Mariona Sobrerroca propels this accomplished debut from the pseudonymous Moliner (the writing team of Rosa Ribas and Sabine Hofmann), set in 1952. Insp. Isidro Castro, of the Criminal Investigation Brigade, takes charge of the inquiry, but he must answer to Commissioner Goyanes, his superior from the Social Investigation Brigade, the Franco regime’s political force. The powers that be want the murder of this prominent woman solved (“In a country where peace and order supposedly reigned, local crimes weren’t supposed to bring that image into question”). Meanwhile, reporter Ana Martí realizes that there’s more to the story than the police think or want to think. She enlists her relative Beatriz Noguer, a literary scholar whose Communist sympathies make Beatriz unemployable in Barcelona, to do some literary sleuthing into letters connected with the crime. While too much exposition slows the narrative, the oppressive atmosphere of Franco’s Spain is palpable and frightening.