Gloria bendita

Gloria bendita

Novel , 2020

Alianza Editorial

Pages: 328

María, a former athlete who scrapes a living by doing odd jobs, has attracted the attention of the Emeritus. Secret mechanisms are set in motion to satisfy royal desires, under the control of Commissioner Romero, a complex character at the service of the powerful, who, together with his faithful and ineffable wife, pulls the strings from the shadows and plans often illegal but always lucrative business transactions.

Meanwhile, Juan Delforo is documenting a new book, an investigation into the menace of the communism in the 20th century, and he gets a closer look at characters whose "undercover activities" led to actions that official history records in a very different way. No public event seems to be safe from the interference of the parallel structures of the State or power. Whatever the power.

Is this an imaginary portrait of a country that is rotten to the core or fictional confirmation of our worst suspicions?

With real flesh and blood characters, intelligent dialogue and an impeccable treatment of the timing and action, Juan Madrid deals with known and suspected realities in Gloria bendita, but also with fiction as "the only great truth", despite everything the only truth capable of “describing the world”.

“Juan Madrid, one of the founders of the Spanish crime novel (…). An author who uses crime fiction as a tool to explain what happens in the city streets, with the characters who live in them telling their own stories. And their anger, hope, good or bad luck, the injustice, and the moral codes of the victors and the defeated that Juan Madrid brings to life in his novels also tell us the story of our own everyday lives.” Extract from the conclusions of the jury of the 2020 Pepe Carvalho Prize