Among the best in modern Spanish literature... The Carvalho mix is funny... the detective is scathingly witty about the powerful. He is an original eccentric, burning books and cooking all night... Like Chandler's Philip Marlowe, he is the man of honour walking the mean streets of a sick society. * Independent * Bon-vivant detective Pepe Carvalho is once more in his beloved Barcelona, and back to his usual nonchalant style of sleuthing between slap-up meals and the appreciation of female pulchritude... one of the best. * Guardian *
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.