Black Sun Rising
A Novel
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $24.99
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
A riveting thriller combining real historical events and characters with a sinister detective story of eugenics, racism, and nationalist paranoia.
Barcelona, summer 1909.
When the scientist and explorer Randolph Foulkes is blown up in a random terrorist bomb attack, private detective Harry Lawton is hired by the man’s widow to identify the beneficiary of a large payment Foulkes had made shortly before his death. Lawton’s arrival in the Catalan capital coincides with a series of unusual killings that appear to have been carried out by a blood-drinking animal in the Ramblas district and adds another element of instability to a city already teetering on the brink of insurrection. Lawton soon meets and teams up with Esperanza Claramunt, a young anarchist whose lover was one of the victims of the “beast of the Ramblas,” and the Catalan crime reporter Bernat Mata, who has begun investigating these crimes.
So what begins as a straightforward investigation into presumed marital infidelity turns into something far more sinister, as Lawton probes Foulkes’ connections to the mysterious Explorers Club, the Barcelona political police, and an eccentric Austrian hypnotist. Adrift in a city gripped by rebellion and lawlessness, Lawton enters a labyrinth of murder, corruption, political conflict, and crazed racial pseudo-science where no one’s survival is guaranteed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1909, this superior mystery from Carr (The Devils of Cardona) opens with a literal bang when a bomb planted in a Barcelona, Spain, caf blows up a foreigner. The victim may be Randolph Foulkes, an English explorer, who's been missing since the blast. Mrs. Randolph Foulkes, who suspects that her husband is the dead man, wants to hire a fellow countryman to confirm it and also to figure out why he left a bequest to an unknown woman. Henry Lawton, an English private investigator, accepts Mrs. Foulkes's lucrative offer to travel to Barcelona to investigate. Once there, he's able to confirm Foulkes's death through a comparison of fingerprints. Identifying the relationship of the beneficiary to the dead man proves trickier. The reported presence in Barcelona of a blood-drinking murderer known as the Raval Monster complicates his search. Carr excels at incorporating early 20th-century Spanish political developments into a suspenseful and clever plot line. Philip Kerr fans will be pleased.
Customer Reviews
The bomb
Author
English journo and non-fiction author with special interest in terrorism. The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism (2007) is an everything you always wanted to know, and lots of stuff you could have done without tome. Mr Carr's first novel The Devils of Cardona (2016) was about a Muslim killer taking revenge on the Catholic church in 16th century Spain. The author revisits Spain of a different era in his second novel.
Setting
Barcelona in 1909: a hot bed of anarchists, syndicalists, and other terrorists fond of bombs, as well as Catalan independence movement.
Plot
Wealth English aristocrat and scientist, read eugenicist, Randolph Foulkes gets blown up in a Barcelona cafe shortly after giving a mysterious women a bit fat cheque. English dude's wifey back home hires Irish-born Boer war veteran and ex-London copper turned PI Harry Lawton to investigate. Harry, a former pugilist and epileptic (which is why he had to leave the police force), is a good fit (sorry) for the job. He's sort of a cross between Jason Bourne and Sherlock Holmes, and speaks fluent Spanish because his old Mum was Chilean. With me so far? Meanwhile, a nosey local journo and the anarchist daughter of a martyr to the cause get involved via subplots that become progressively more interwoven. Stuff happens. Resolution is achieved with room for Harry to ride again in a sequel if Mr Carr were so inclined. Parental advisory: There will be blood, lots of blood.
Narrative
Third person alternating from the POVs of the main protagonists.
Characters
The major characters were well developed, especially Harry.
Prose
Clear, no nonsense journalistic style that has an appropriately dated feel in language and pacing. Some literary flourishes that came off, others not so much.
Bottom line
I learned a heap about an aspect of European history I knew nothing about, which put the Spanish Civil War in context, and helped me understand the contemporary Catalan independence. It was a good detective yarn too, although I think Mr Carr tried to cram too much into the plot.