Book Talk
with Smiffs book & card store, Nerja
Fernando Aramburu is one of the most lauded writers in
Spanish, and one of his novels is now available in English.
Homeland (l) is a heart-tugging tale of two best friends whose
families are riven by loyalties in a charged political
atmosphere including terrorism. The friends, Miren and
Bittori, have been inseparable while growing up in a small
town in northern Spain. The two women have little interest in
politics, and the threat posed by the Basque terrorist group
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) does not seem to affect them.
Then Bittori’s husband starts receiving menacing letters from
ETA. The missives demand money, and accuse him of being a
police informant. Bittori
asks Miren for help, but
the latter’s loyalties are
torn because Miren’s son
has just joined ETA. In his
mother’s code of honour,
denouncing the group
would be tantamount to
condemning her own
child. the form of personal and
formal investigations into two
political assassinations. They
are the murders of Rafael
Uribe Uribe in 1914, the man
who inspired Gabriel García
Márquez’s General Buendia in
One Hundred Years Of
Solitude; and, of the
charismatic Jorge Eliecer
Gaitán Ayala, who might have
been Colombia’s John F
Kennedy but was gunned
down on the brink of winning
the presidential elections of
1948. Separated by more than
30 years, these two slayings
initially seem unconnected,
but as the tale unfolds,
Vásquez reveals how between them they contain the seeds of
the violence that has bedevilled Colombia ever since.
Homeland has picked up
prizes including the
National Prize for
Literature and the
National Critics Prize in
Spain, and the Strega
Europeo Prize and the
Giuseppe Tomasi di
Lampedusa International
Literary Prize in Italy. It
leads off this month’s Soltalk Hotlist of titles, some entirely
new, others moving into small paperback format for the first
time or being reissued, sometimes after years out of print. All
are due for publication on dates in May, with availability in
print to order this month or in early June. The Hotlist helps
readers to plan and budget for book ordering. Dead At First Sight (l), is the
latest thriller from Peter
James. A man waits at a
London airport for the arrival
of Ingrid Ostermann, the love
of his life. Across the Atlantic,
a retired New York cop waits
in a bar in Florida’s Key West
for his first date with the lady
who is beyond doubt his
soulmate. The two men are
about to discover they have
been scammed out of almost
every penny they have in the
world, and that neither
woman exists. Meanwhile, a
wealthy divorcee plunges in
suspicious circumstances
from an apartment block in
Munich. In the same week, Detective Superintendent Roy
Grace in Brighton, UK, is called to investigate a suicide that is
clearly not what it first seems.
The Beekeeper of Aleppo
(l), by Christy Lefteri, is a
testament to the triumph
of the human spirit. Told
with deceptive simplicity,
it is reminding readers of
the power of storytelling.
Nuri is a beekeeper; his
wife, Afra, an artist. They
live a simple life, rich in
family and friends, in the
beautiful Syrian city of
Aleppo, until the
unthinkable happens.
When all they care for is
destroyed by war, they are
forced to escape. As Nuri
and Afra travel through a
broken world, they must
confront not only the pain
of their own unspeakable loss, but dangers that would
overwhelm the bravest of souls.
Thomas Harris, of ‘Hannibal
Lecter’ fame, hits the book
racks again with Cari Mora (l).
Twenty-five million dollars in
cartel gold lies hidden
beneath a mansion on the
Miami Beach waterfront.
Ruthless men have tracked it
for years. Leading the pack is
Hans-Peter Schneider. Driven
by unspeakable appetites, he
makes a living fleshing out
the violent fantasies of other,
richer men. Cari Mora,
caretaker of the house, has
escaped from the violence in
her native country. She stays
in Miami on a wobbly
The Shape Of The Ruins (p), by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, takes
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