Mascarell, con elle (Inspector Mascarell 16)

1964. Spain celebrates 25 Years of Peace, the slogan with which the Franco regime sought to commemorate the end of the Civil War a quarter of a century later. An unexpected visitor arrives at Miquel Mascarell's home. Retired and eighty years old, he had been his fellow prisoner in the Valley of the Fallen. The visitor asks him about the murder that took place in the Valley at the end of 1944, which Miquel investigated. This question takes the elderly former inspector back to the days of his captivity, when he wrote letters to his deceased wife and was just another prisoner of the megalomaniacal Francoist project. Did he solve that crime? Who did it, and why? Through the testimonies from his investigation, we glimpse the darkest chapters of the war, such as the Battle of Bilbao, the bloody massacre of Badajoz, and the tragic retreat from Málaga. The novel thus becomes a chilling tale that also serves as a historical record, as happens in all the novels starring the most human character in Spanish crime literature.