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Dead Man in Barcelona [Hardcover]

Michael Pearce (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Book Description

December 1, 2008
Praise for the Dead Man series:

“Picking up a new book by Michael Pearce reminds you why people enjoy reading mysteries.”—Denver Post

“The steady pace, atmospheric design, and detailed description re-create a complicated city. A recommended historical series.”—Library Journal

“Sheer fun.”—The Times (London)

“An unfailingly amusing historical series.”—Booklist

“Pearce again demonstrates his skill at making the past come alive and at seamlessly weaving actual political intrigues into his plot.”—Publishers Weekly

Barcelona, 1912—a city still recovering from the dramatic incidents of the so-called “Tragic Week” when Catalonian conscripts bound for the unpopular war in Spanish Morocco had rebelled at the city’s dockside against the royalist forces. In the fighting, many were killed, and afterward, even more imprisoned, including an Englishman, who was later found dead in his cell.

The dead man had been a prominent businessman in Gibraltar, so what was he doing in Barcelona? And how did he really meet his end—murdered, in a prison cell? The case, in Gibraltar’s view, cries out for investigation—and by someone independent of the Spanish authorities. So Scotland Yard dispatches Seymour of the Special Branch.

Michael Pearce was raised in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. He trained as a Russian interpreter but later moved to an academic career, first as a lecturer in English and the History of Ideas and then as an administrator. Pearce now lives in southwest London and is best known as the author of the award-winning Mamur Zapt books.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pearce's solid fifth pre-WWI historical to feature Sandor Seymour of Special Branch (after 2007's A Dead Man in Tangier) takes the Scotland Yard detective to Barcelona, Spain, to crack a two-year-old cold case—the death, while in a Spanish prison, of an English businessman, Sam Lockhart. Lockhart was arrested during the bloody riots that erupted in Barcelona in 1910 after reserve troops refused orders to serve in Spanish Morocco. Seymour's assignment enables him to reunite with Chantale de Lissac, his half-Arab, half-French romantic interest, who uses her people skills to help him learn more about the hidden personal and political passions that may have led to Lockhart's murder. As usual, Pearce is more concerned with—and more successful at—bringing his chosen milieu to life than stumping the reader with a puzzle. Fans of the author's Gareth Owen series (The Mark of the Pasha, etc.) will note similarities between Chantale and Owen's independent-minded Egyptian girlfriend-turned-wife. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The fifth outing to feature Sandor Seymour, the multilingual Scotland Yard detective inevitably dispatched to a foreign city to solve a diplomatically delicate mystery, sticks to Pearce’s tried-and-true formula. This time around, Seymour heads to Barcelona to investigate the death of a Gibraltar businessman in a Spanish prison. The catch is that the man died two years previously during what was referred to by Catalan natives as “Tragic Week.” During this week in 1910, many native Catalans were slaughtered when they refused to be conscripted into military service for Spain. Seymour, with the assistance of his exotic French-Arab paramour, Chantale de Lissac, must connect the dots in a tangled web of Spanish, Arab, Catalan, and English relations to uncover the motive for Sam Lockhart’s murder. This series continues to be distinguished by an intriguing international flavor and its atmospheric depiction of the convoluted political and social arena that characterized turn-of-the-century Europe and the Middle East. --Margaret Flanagan

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Soho Constable; First Edition edition (December 1, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1569475377
  • ISBN-13: 978-1569475379
  • Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 0.8 x 8.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,150,638 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

 

Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars No atmosphere and unconvincing characters, August 11, 2009
This review is from: Dead Man in Barcelona (Hardcover)
The premise of this book is promising: a British investigator is sent to Barcelona in 1912 to probe the death of a fellow-countryman who has been a go-between in procuring the Royal Navy precious oil reserves as it transforms its fleet from coal to oil power.

The city is seething. Two years before in "Tragic Week" the Spanish authorities violently crushed a Catalan uprising. The city is also a major stronghold for anarchists while Arab immigrants pursue their own lives in its shadows. The murdered Brit was caught up in all of these separate groups.

Despite the juicy set-up, I have to report the book is a major disappointment. There is no period detail in this book, no sense of being transported back to 1912. The city does not come to life, in fact the only location regularly evoked is the pedestrian street, Las Ramblas. We don't see how people dress or live; we don't smell the city which at the time was in the midst of a major economic boom that gave birth to its unique architecture (this is just the time when Gaudi was active).

The other location the author uses is Gibraltar but here there is even less detail -- no rock, no descriptions at all.

Worse, the characters, whether they be Spanish or Catalan or Arab, all come across as terribly proper Englishmen and women. The main character is in the midst of a passionate affair with an exotic woman from Tangiers. It has all the passion of a cucumber sandwich. They don't kiss, or hug, or speak to one another, or profess love or do anything at all.

The author has also a weird way of handling dialogue. He has characters recount page after page of conversations they had with other people verbatim. At other times, characters manage to overhear long passages of incriminating dialogue.

There is a solution to the murder but by the end one scarcely cares because nothing seems to be at stake.

I was expecting something rich and pungent. Instead I got weak tea.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars excellent pre-WWI thriller, December 6, 2008
This review is from: Dead Man in Barcelona (Hardcover)
In 1910 riots broke out in Barcelona when reservist units refused to be deployed in Spanish Morocco. During the deadly confrontation that left many dead and more in jail, someone murders English businessman Sam Lockhart while he was locked in a prison.

Two years later Scotland Yard sends Special Branch Detective Sandor Seymour to Spain to investigate the homicide of the English citizen during "Tragic Week". The background information is sketchy at best starting with why the Gibraltar based business man was in Barcelona and the lack of a motive makes it even more difficult. Still not understanding the terrain especially the local populace who have deep qualms about strangers and police, and needing to move around freely, Seymour hooks up with his girlfriend Chantale de Lissac, who is half-Arab and half-French. As they investigate, the case takes strange twists through a city still living in fear.

The latest "Dead Man in" pre-WWI thriller (see A DEAD MAN IN ISTANBUL, A DEAD MAN IN ATHENS and A DEAD MAN IN TANGIER) once again provides the audience a deep look at a new location, this time Barcelona just after riots devastated the city. The story line is action-packed and never slows down as Sandor conducts his investigation into the cold case homicide of the English citizen. Although the whodunit is clever and well written, as is the case in all of Michael Pearce's tales (see also the Mamur Zapt Egyptian historical saga), the sense of time and place is outstanding.

Harriet Klausner
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5.0 out of 5 stars A Wry Adventure, February 5, 2010
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This review is from: Dead Man in Barcelona (Paperback)
Pearce does it again with his engaging hero journeying to a new city to solve a crime. This is a worthy successor to the other volumes in this series and a fine diversion from the excellent Mamur Zapt series. In particular, the view of pre-war Barcelona is interesting as a fine portrayal of a lost world complete with its foreshadowings of the Spanish Civil War. Well worth a read.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
new bloke
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Señor Lockhart, Las Ramblas, Chief of Police, The Arab, Deputy Commissioner, Señora Lockhart, Foreign Office, Señor Seymour, East End, Miss de Lissac, Señor Vasquez, Scotland Yard, Don Quixote, Sam Lockhart, Leila Lockhart, Spanish Customs, Naval Intelligence, Tragic Week
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