El espía del rey

Sindo Argüelles is the heir to a wealthy family in the Asturian mining region when violence erupts and shatters everything. In October 1934, during the revolution, a mob storms his house and brutally murders his parents, symbols of an enlightened elite who believed in social balance and coexistence between classes. From that moment on, Sindo ceases to be a privileged young man and becomes a man marked by fear, guilt, and a question that will haunt him forever: how to act without betraying the memory of his family. The civil war forces him to choose a side not because of ideology, but because of survival. Officially declared dead after a failed assault on the Asturian front, Sindo is reborn as “nobody,” a man without identity, without a past, and without visible loyalties. This forced disappearance becomes his greatest advantage. From the shadows, he embarks on an unexpected path that leads him to serve as a monarchist spy during the dark years of the postwar period, first in the service of the Bourbon Restoration and, eventually, of a fragile democracy struggling to find its footing. Between mining Asturias, postwar Madrid, and the corridors of power, the novel spans several decades of Spanish history from an unsettling and human perspective. There are no absolute heroes or villains, only men forced to choose in a world in ruins. Identity, loyalty, betrayal, and the weight of memory intertwine in the life of a protagonist who learns that, sometimes, to survive and serve a greater cause, it is necessary to disappear.