What the dead of Inés Plana do not tell

ARGUMENTAL ADVANCE

Rita Marí, the heiress to a great fortune, survived a plane crash in which three of her friends died. Since then, estranged from her husband and children, sunk in guilt, she lives in seclusion in her mansion on the edge of the sea, in Valencia. A year after the catastrophe, Rita disappears without a trace and Julián Tresser, formerly a lieutenant and now captain of the UCO Civil Guard, protagonist of the two previous novels by Inés Plana, moves from Madrid with his team to investigate the case. . Before him stands a wall of unknowns. Who really was the elusive Rita Marí? Has his disappearance from her been voluntary? Who were the enemies of that lonely and depressed woman? But, above all, will Julián, also a survivor of his own past, be able to decipher the hidden keys to the disappearance and face the challenges of his present?

«Death surrounds those who approach her, it has condemned her to survive her friends Mimi, Tere and Anabel. Her remains lie under graves. He had invited Eduardo to his house for dinner and he doesn’t know what became of him. Being with her is a curse.

THE CHARACTERS AND THE HUMAN CONDITION Using a subtle third-person omniscient narrator, Inés Plana is characterized by her sharp and intense observation of the human condition. Her characters stand out for their deep psychological characterization. There are no absolute good guys or bad guys, they are all torn between good and evil, with a moral outline of unusual quality that achieves the reader’s empathy.

MASTERING THE KEYS OF SUSPENSE Inés Plana uses different forms of suspense in her novels and combines them masterfully. There is anticipation of certain events, the reader always knows more than the characters and is ahead of the real action, we witness races against the clock and a macabre game of cat and mouse. Pure tension.

CRITICAL CHARGE AND PORTRAIT OF THE B SIDE OF OUR SOCIETY Far from creating convoluted plots with evil people at the limit of verisimilitude, Inés Plana recovers the critical spirit of the most genuine crime novel. His previous works parade gender violence, sexual abuse, the mafias that control drug and human trafficking, the consequences of war crimes in the Balkans through the criminal groups that operate in our country, cybercrime, etc In What the Dead Tell Us the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis and the bursting of the real estate bubble become very evident; also of the bad uses that led to that.

A MAP OF COMPLEX PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS As we have already pointed out, the characters imagined by Inés Plana have volume and respond to emotions worked on and suffered for years. The author creates a map of complex networks of interpersonal relationships that, at times, increase the emotional tension of the novel and not only that derived from the action. We know her fears and her ambitions, which allows us to understand her actions. The author naturally integrates the events that happened in the previous novels to complete these personal profiles.

IMAGINATION AND REALISM Behind What the Dead Don’t Tell lies a deep investigation into the working methods of law enforcement. As in the first two novels in the series, there are no forensic or computer miracles. On this occasion, in addition, Inés Plana has consulted with a Civil Guard commander who is an expert in criminal profiles and, for everything related to the plane accident, she has had the help of a flight commander.

CHARACTER GALLERY

THE INVESTIGATORS AND THE INSTRUCTING JUDGE

JULIÁN TRESSER For six months he has been captain of the UCO, heading a section of the homicide, kidnapping and extortion group. At forty-seven years old, he has prestige in the force, having successfully resolved very complicated cases. We met him in Dying is not what hurts the most, the first novel in the series, when he was a lieutenant of the Civil Guard assigned to the Judicial Police in San Lorenzo de El Escorial. He later directed his own team in Uvés (Madrid). Julián has been haunted by torments and tragedies for almost his entire life; He has a complicated biography, but the death at birth of his daughter Carlota, a few months ago, cannot be compared to anything. It also meant the end of his relationship with Adelaida. A little over a year ago he adopted Luba, a girl he rescued from child prostitution in Before those who do not love die.

GUILLERMO COIRA He has just turned thirty. Corporal of the Civil Guard assigned to the Judicial Police of Uvés, he has stopped his promotion to sergeant to join, provisionally, the Tresser team at the UCO, while he prepares the access course. The son of fishermen from the Costa da Morte, he entered the academy at the age of nineteen. He has recovered from the breakup with Lola, with whom he lived for a time in Madrid. He is now in love with ISABELA, a friend from his adolescence who is a culture councilor in the city council of Cieña, his hometown.

LUCIA BRANCHO He has also renounced the promotion – corporal, in his case – to accept Tresser’s offer and join the UCO. He is an optimistic person who brings joy to the group of researchers. He comes from a family of civil guards and joined Tresser’s first team in the case of the murdered professor, narrated in Dying is not what hurts the most. She maintains a romantic, and more than discreet, relationship with Captain JAVIER HERNÁNDEZ-COR, an intelligent, educated and effective guy in his work, who, in addition to being a soldier from the Academy, has a degree in Law and Economics.

AMANDA ROCHA Psychologist, criminologist and captain of the Civil Guard specialized in developing criminal profiles to guide lines of investigation. The criminal’s behavior leaves traces of behavior that, properly interpreted, allow us to know her personality and refine the investigations much more. That’s what Amanda’s job is.

PEDRO INIESTA AND LUCAS MANISES Piter and Mani, both assigned to the UCO for a year and former members of the Operational Support Group (GAO), the elite unit expert in information and monitoring tasks.

LIEUTENANT SUÑOL AND SERGEANT SALAS Members of the Judicial Police unit of the Valencia command. They take charge of the investigation into Rita’s disappearance under the orders of the Monarall judge, who is investigating the case. Suñol is about to be a father; In fact, his wife leaves accounts during the case.

JAVIER CITALL Monarall investigating judge, in charge of the disappearance of Rita Marí. He has several years of experience in office and a good reputation among police forces – this is not always the case -, a diligent magistrate, effective in making decisions and with clear ideas.

The victims, their families and two close friends

RITA MARÍ Rich by family and marriage. She is the daughter of a wealthy Valencian contractor who ended up becoming a builder. She is married to a Madrid businessman, owner of a large laundromat chain. In 2011 she traveled to Thailand with three friends for a four-day retreat in Chiang Mai. The charter flight they were traveling on suffered an accident from which only she survived. Rita is an empathetic and generous woman who has created a social center to serve people and families in trouble due to the crisis. She is elusive, discreet and keeps many secrets.

EDUARDO MOLARO Professional military man, son of a Navy officer. Thirty-something years. He was traveling with his wife on their honeymoon on the crashed plane. She didn’t survive. Her MALAI wife was Thai, although she came to Spain as a child, when her parents settled in Zaragoza. As a result of the plane accident, Eduardo had to have his knee reconstructed with several prostheses and grafts, which removed him from operational service. He now dedicates himself to teaching language classes in the Army.

JIMENA MOLARO Eduardo’s sister. He is also a captain in the Army and resides in Zaragoza.

HELIODORUS SCOTLAND Successful—and obese—Madrid businessman from a family from Soria. Orphaned when he was twenty years old, he inherited a humble laundry in Lavapiés and, from it, created a successful chain of low-cost laundries. He met Rita in the eighties, when she showed him a store in Valencia where Heliodoro wanted to set up her first store in the Levantine capital.

LORENZO AND NICOLAS ESCOZA The children of Rita and Heliodoro. The oldest, Lorenzo, is a replica of his father at his age, with the same tendency toward obesity. He has a thin and pretty girlfriend, MAMEN, whom Heliodoro can’t stand because he suspects that he lives with her son because of the money. Nicolás is a priest, a haughty and quite impertinent guy.

VICENTE MARÍ Important character in absentia. He was Rita’s father, a fisherman who, in the seventies, sold some family land to a real estate developer with whom he ended up partnering to build the Alassar villas, one of which Rita resides. Over the years, he also acquired dozens of garages in Valencia and numerous stores in the capital and in the suburbs.

CAROLINA BELLAVÍ He runs a social center in the Benimaclet neighborhood financed by Rita Marí. The center has no official name, although everyone calls it Casa Rita; distributes one hundred meals a day and delivers as many bags of food to those who cannot fill the refrigerators that the economic crisis has emptied

I OWE Heliodoro’s driver, for whom he feels absolute loyalty and submission. He’s been with him for ten years. He is a tall and stocky Romanian, few in words, with a tendency to express himself through aphorisms.

Tresser’s inner circle

LUBA Tresser’s adopted daughter. She is fourteen years old, although her small body is typical of a smaller girl. Julián rescued her from a white slave trafficking and prostitution mafia. Her services were in high demand and the men treated her with violence that has left its mark. Now everything has changed: she has a father, a house and a cat, GRETA. She is about to go to an institute, even though when the adoption took place she was profoundly illiterate.

ADELAIDA MABRAN Psychiatrist who, for a time, came in and out of Tresser’s life until they fell in love. After a risky pregnancy, since she was thirty-seven years old, she lost the girl they were expecting. After that, their relationship fell apart like a house of cards. Now she is involved in some problem that has put her in the sights of the UDEF.

Spoiler-proof We ignore in this relationship other characters who are important to the plot, but whose description would spoil part of the plot. These are the cases of LEONCIO, BUD, CELINO, NILO or PEPET, to name just five of them.