Southern Seas (A Five Star Title) [Paperback]

Manuel Vazquez Montalban (Author), Patrick Camiller (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2000 | Series: A Five Star Title

"Montalban writes with authority and compassion - a Le Carré-like sorrow." --Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Spanish (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Manuel Vazquez Montalban was born in Barcelona in 1939. He was a journalist, novelist and creator of Pepe Carvalho, a fast-living, gourmet private detective. Montalban won both the Raymond Chandler Prize and the French Grand Prix of Detective Fiction for his thrillers, which are translated into all major languages. He died in October 2003.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail (June 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852427000
• ISBN-13: 978-1852427009
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #209,396 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, satirical detective story of post Franco Barcelona, July 12, 2003

By 

"cloudia" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Southern Seas (A Five Star Title) (Paperback)

Highly recommended hard-boiled detective novel that looks at the cultural malaise of Spain in general and Barcelona in particular coming out of thirty years of Fascist dictatorship. Every character in this book has a serious political past and agenda, and they recite their political evolution and handily give the details of which party they recently voted for and why in the same fashion that Law & Order interviewees cynically give the details of their professional pitfalls. The hero Pepe Carvalho is so wacked out he burns books (but why is the question,) and he seems to be an overweight balding alcoholic with gourmand tendencies, but he's still a hit with the ladies. And the story is excellently written, and at once amusing and sad.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PEPE CARVALHO'S FINEST, February 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Southern Seas (Paperback)

Once again Montalban hypnotizes us with his great story-telling ability, his poetry, his stunning metaphores and unforgettable characters. Detective literature never aimed this high. Winner of many prestigious awards including "The Raymond Chandler Award", Southern Seas introduces us to the figure of Pepe Carvalho, detective, gourmet, wine-expert, philosopher, lover, former member of the Communist Party and the CIA. The setting is Barcelona, Spain, in the post-Franco era. Images of rare beauty and impressive power alternate in this atypical "who done it?" story. Montalban succeeds in elevating the genre to a higher level and, perhaps, creates a genre on its own. More Montalban, please!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pepe, Pepe, Pepe . . . ., July 1, 2010

By 

McTeague (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Southern Seas (A Five Star Title) (Paperback)

This is a book, I'd say, about a man of a certain age, who's done all his living, is tired, and asks himself all too frequently, why am I still hanging on. The plot is not as important as the honesty of the author's feelings and the artistry of the writing.

The honesty is that of an author expressing to you his likes and his dislikes, his disgust and his love, as they actually are. If you don't like them, you won't like this book either. The artistry of the writing is an unobtrusive blending of styles that shows that the author is a lover of books after all, despite whatever currently happens to be burning in Pepe Carvalho's fireplace: satirical portraits (the Marquess), sensitive portrayals (Yes, Biscuter), extremely trashy descriptions of sex (Pepe's), an outstanding description of a hangover ("Never again . . . ."), lots of hard-boiled detective talk, stream of consciousness a la Joyce, and, every so often, similes worthy of Vergil. And the food. Always the food.

By the end of the story we see that the world-weary tough guy has come to the rescue of quite a few damsels in distress and may be just a big softie after all. Maybe that's the secret of his appeal to women. But one could well ask how it is possible for an old guy to enjoy the company of so many different women and still be so down all the time. Well, it's his story, not yours. If you don't like the book, you know what you can do with it.