Customer Reviews

Dead Man in Barcelona

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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

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.

Sam Lockhart, a British subject, is murdered in a Spanish jail after his arrest in connection with riots in Barcelona by Catalan conscripts rebelling at being sent to fight in Morocco. Two years later at the behest of the Royal Navy, Scotland Yard reluctantly sends out Seymour to look into the matter. As in Pearce's great series about the Mamur Zapt in Egypt, Seymour is adept at languages, comfortable in cultures other than his own, ingratiating and fits easily into the culture of the person he is questioning, sometimes by associating with members of that culture who increase his acceptance (here it is his girl friend (half Arab and half French) from Morocco. He is very good at learning---seemingly almost by accident---what he wants to know.

His method is to ask questions, inquiries that seem harmless and almost random, especially at the outset of an investigation when he knows little. As he learns more he uses what he knows when he talks to people again. They are now in no position to refuse to answer him. Besides, he is always calm, friendly and sympathetic. So he gets answers, even when the questions are, as they end up being, not so harmless.

Here he finds Lockhart involved in many things. He has many passions, all of which he supports by actions. Some are personal. He had a long series of affairs with women from all the local cultures, Spanish, Catalan and Arab. He is sympathetic to the local oppressed (Catalans and Arabs) and to anarchists (he dislikes authority intensely); but he does not dislike the Spanish as people. He has a legitimate business but is also engaged in the local cottage industry, smuggling. Many loved and respected him but he certainly had enemies. Gradually, rather gently, Seymour puts it all together.

The sense of place that Pearce evokes here is wonderful as is his feel for the differing cultures. Indeed, as in the Mamur Zapt books, the various cultures, so lovingly depicted, are the inevitable causes of the relevant events. The book is beautifully written and well-plotted, full of wry humor. A very good read.