Guillermo Martínez

Half thriller, half spy novel, Un crimen dialéctico draws on the perverse black humour of Patricia Highsmith and the masterful narrative style of John le Carré.

 A university lecturer, who was previously an undercover agent in East Berlin, is orderedto eliminate another man. The Berlin Wall has recently fallen, but the Cold War continues to claim victims. His quarry, whose identity has not been revealed to him, takes him across the Atlantic to an enchanting guesthouse nestled in a remote and beautiful spot in the Andes.

While waiting for instructions, he writes an academic article at night on his specialty: the non-existence of free will. By day, he builds up a friendship with the charming family who run the accommodation where he is staying, fearing that any one of them could be the target. When the murder plan is set in motion, he will have an unparalleled opportunity to find out to what extent we are – or are not – able to take decisions that are undetermined by external forces.

A brilliantly crafted thriller that retrieves the style that made Guillermo Martínez famous in The Oxford Murders: a riveting mystery story brimming with deep reflections and with an ending as unexpected as it is shocking.