About the Book
«Books are very good, and it seems that they have given you many good things, but don’t get confused, don’t apply the ideas you read in them where they don’t apply, and don’t use them to alter reality to suit you. The readings that are useful in the end are the others, those that from imagination illuminate what there is.»
Martina Hernando, a retired inspector and Manuela’s best friend, loses her mother during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is one of the many people who have died in Madrid’s nursing homes during the lockdown. Homicide inspector Manuela Mauri can’t find words to console her: her emotions are on edge and she, too, longs for her mother’s hands.
This is the state of mind Manuela Mauri is in before facing the investigation of the new crime that occupies the pages of The Forging of a Rebel. Since the beginning of the health alert she has not had a break; her children, at home, are irritable and aggressive and Alberto, her partner, has not taken the forced coexistence with them well at all. Manuela, for the first time in her life, feels overwhelmed by events.
An investigation in times of pandemic
“I felt like shouting: ‘Javier, damn it, we can’t touch each other! ’ But I didn’t. I knew that Javier had taken three PCR tests, one after the other, and the results had been negative. They were both wearing masks, too. And maybe I was getting a little paranoid with all the hygiene and social distancing. How strange, how sad and how lifeless everything seemed in those first days. How overwhelmed we were.”
In the midst of chaos, with ghostly streets and empty roads, a double murder in Alcalá de Henares will keep Manuela awake at night: Carlota, a nineteen-year-old girl, calls the police when she finds her father and stepmother shot dead in their house. An illegal party called in the purest Agatha Christie style imitating her novel Ten Little blacks and the testimony of ten young people at war with society will be key to the investigation.
«Come to Isla del Negro, a lovely place. We have so many things to tell each other… From 5 to 8 pm at Jorge’s house. Bring alcohol.»
It is not just a crime novel: it is also a tribute to reading.
A detective novel that goes far beyond the investigation of a homicide, because it confronts us with invisible conflicts that coexist with the contemporary subject: unhappiness, frustration, anger and hatred as evils of our time. In a Madrid besieged by a virus, the generational differences of our society will explode in this investigation to remind each of us of the weight of our conscience. Like Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö in their day, Trujillo and Silva unite their gazes to sketch, through the crime genre, a snapshot of the society in which they live.
The forging of a rebel combines the arguments and resources of the classic detective genre with a look at burning issues that we cannot turn our backs on. The novel crosses the genre, also becoming a literary reflection on the experiences and desires that shape our character. To further emphasize the power that books exert in our lives, Noemí Trujillo and Lorenzo Silva turn to the pages of Arturo Barea’s trilogy, which they allude to from the very title, in a notable homage to The Forging of a Rebel —just like in the first novel in the series, If this is a womanpaid tribute to Primo Levi of If this is a man—, as one of the readings that illuminate reality through imagination. Throughout the story, other readings are mixed in, from London, Melville and Dumas, whom Manuela reads with her young son on the nights that her work allows, to Cortázar or Pavel Kohout of The prime time of the assassinsA meta-literary game that will accompany the reader throughout the novel and Manuela Mauri herself during the investigation.
Source: https://algunoslibrosbuenos.com/la-forja-de-una-rebelde
