The Watcher in the Pine
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The third Carlos Tejada investigation
Spain, 1940: Potes, a remote northern mountain village, is Carlos Tejada’s first independent Guardia Civil command. He soon discovers that this “promotion” is a mixed blessing. The villagers are unwelcoming. He and his pregnant wife, Elena, have no place to live but the jail, and his own men seem strangely hostile. Is it just their suspicion of his wife’s Republican sympathies? Or is there more going on in the beautiful but bleak area, recently devastated by the civil war? Tejada discovers that there may, indeed, be a new outbreak of that war with Potes as its epicenter. And he must find a way to reconcile his love for his wife with his duty.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Both time and place 1940, just after the Spanish Civil War, in a remote village in the mountains of northern Spain are impeccably rendered in Edgar-winner Pawel's well-researched if austere novel, her third (after 2004's Law of Return) to feature Carlos Tejada, a lieutenant in the Guardia, the police force of Fascist Spain. Tejada has left his previous post in Salamanca to take command of the Guardia in the town of Potes, whose small size belies its troubles. Guerrillas killed his predecessor, and the area has been designated a "Devastated Region" in the war's aftermath. Tejada and his young wife, Elena, who's carrying their first child, are both greeted with wary suspicion, despite Elena's Republican sympathies. The Civil War may be over, but the conflict lives on, embodied by the relationship between Tejada and Elena and their relationships with the residents of Potes. The crime that propels the mystery, which is a long time in coming, involves the theft of two crates of dynamite, a local rebel's death and a ruthless and enterprising guerrilla. But for all the book's richness of detail, the lack of narrative drive and flatness of tone may disappoint fans of more conventional mystery fare.
