The work of Alicia Gimenez Bartlett revolves around Petra Delicado character, at least since emerged from his imagination in 1996 with the work Ritos de Muerte. With this character, the author incorporates women with full rights and absolute strength into the Spanish police genre. Later, authors such as Dolores Redondo o Eva Garcia Saenz, but the seed germinated thanks to Alicia.
Every initial task is always arduous. Only the brave know how to find new paths. It is true that gigantic external references like the one in Agatha Christie and some of its female characters serve as the perfect horizon. But in Spain it was Alicia Gimenez Bartlett the transmission belt so that the woman, police officer or investigator, could reach our narrative. And Petra Delicado, a total protagonist who, in her particular name as an oxymoron, invites the awakening of the contradiction that could entail taking a woman as a reference in a genre governed completely by men as investigators, police officers or any other transcendental roles.
But it is always time to abandon the label to avoid just that, the label. Alicia has been able to write new stories of greater social significance. It is not that the crime or black genre does not reflect raw and real circumstances, but there is certainly more life outside the genre ...
Petra Delicado is already a character to turn to when insatiable readers need new doses, but Alicia has shown that when she puts on a historical novel or current narrative, she also performs at her best, already reaching the level of a total writer.
Top 3 best novels of Alicia Giménez Bartlett
The president
Any resemblance with the reality is mere coincidence. There are people who die in hotels in Madrid every day, whether they are community presidents or mayors. So suspicions were out to take off with what could be a new series that takes over from Petra Delicado on time...
The president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Vita Castellá, is found dead in a luxurious hotel room in Madrid. The compromised situation requires that a possible murder be officially ruled out and that the investigation run aground, so that the party in power, to which the victim belongs, has activated all the resources and has made all the phones in high places ring. They can help save time.
For his part, the police chief of the Valencian Community decides to help the Minister of the Interior and the director of the National Police, Juan Quesada Montilla, in their mission: to mislead the authorities. To do this, they put the case in the hands of two novice and peculiar inspectors: the sisters Berta and Marta Miralles. Radically opposed to each other, they must face together a murky world of interests.
Where no one will find you
The case of Teresa Pla Meseguer is certainly shocking. On a purely human level, Teresa's situation happened to be one of those anomalous cases of hermaphroditism at a time in which any ambiguity became a reason for ridicule, inconsideration and public affront. Finally nicknamed La Pastora, Teresa blended in perfectly with the turbulent days of the maquis and the paramilitary struggles against Franco as the perfect hiding place for her strange being.
The character certainly serves for the author in two very transcendental aspects, the historical period itself and the most existential aspect of the character of the shepherdess.
The problem is that in those gray days of endless postwar and repression, La Pastora had all the ballots to become the monster, in the horrifying representation of the rebels. Only someone from outside, like the psychiatrist who insists on contacting her, can shed light on the character and his truth ...
My dear serial killer
From the Petra Delicado series, the feeling that the latest is the best always prevails. A kind of great virtue of the author to always find new surprising ideas for her fetish character.
Petra Delicado returns to the noir scene of our national literature with a new case to unravel before the serial killer on duty continues to disrupt lives. Her first victim was a mature woman, over whose lying body she left a letter to express her macabre love and the spite that led to her sinister actions.
The case seems to be tailored to Petra Delicado, and the great inspector is preparing for it with her usual diligence. But in this case a young inspector from the Mossos d'Esquadra takes the lead. Without really knowing why, Petra finds herself relegated to a secondary role, under the command of this other inspector who appears out of nowhere.
Petra senses how something escapes her to end up in that subordinate position after so many years of work. With a certain point of frustration that will also move the plot, the inspector begins her investigations around what seems like a serial killer who is spreading his macabre love everywhere.
The balance between the intriguing events of the case and Petra's search for the ultimate truth, both in the case and in her professional "degradation", is a particular attraction that puts our beloved inspector in a special position, on a string lazy that can make her weaker, or less attentive to the details that had always made her an incomparable investigator.
On many occasions, work carried out without maximum attention causes mistakes and errors. And failures in a criminal investigation can lead to dire consequences...
Other recommended books by Alicia Giménez Bartlett
The fugitive woman
Petra Delicate Series 13. A new case that Petra has us accustomed to. That the matter goes from the practically inconsequential murder to grow as it goes along and become linked to a whole of much greater substance. Let's leave aside the Anglo noir, the food trucks and think about a gastronomic van where it all began...
Hiding the motive for the crime is even more important than getting rid of the weapon. Because if no one can imagine the motives for murder... the matter will always point to oblivion. But we already know how Petra spends it on her perseverance that can place her at the foot of her abyss.
One morning, the owner of a traveling gastronomic van is found stabbed inside. The vehicle is parked in a central square, along with others of the same characteristics. Everyone participates in festive days organized by Barcelona City Council. No witnesses have heard or seen anything during the night.
After the first investigations, those in charge of the case, Inspector Petra Delicado and Sub-Inspector FermĂn GarzĂłn, only have one clue: the neighbors of the vans near the crime van claim that, the previous afternoon, a woman made a large purchase in the victim's business. Shortly after, they discover who that client is, and their discovery is so important that finding her becomes a priority from that moment on. However, it seems that a mysterious hand follows the detectives, threatening violence to anyone they question. Petra and GarzĂłn face a criminal who will try by all means to ensure that the enigma is not solved.
messengers of darkness
Why go around with the typical and sinister sending of ears or fingers when you can send penises. The thing then points to an even more savage hatred, to an end between the misandric and the sadistic. As the third installment of the fascinating series by Petra Delicado, this plot has a point of special uncertainty, magnificently recovered for the cause of the serials made in Spain.
The point is that the subsequent investigation does not yield positive results, but as the inspector and sub-inspector FermĂn GarzĂłn delve deeper into the labyrinth of tiny clues at their disposal, a monstrous reality begins to take shape. The gloomy shipments are not the product of a disturbed mind or of a sexually deranged person, but of something of much more disturbing proportions...
naked men
Our world and its social news. Something really transcendent is happening and shakes the foundations of our society. In a single generation, everything has changed so much… Alicia Giménez Bartlett recounts a transition of unpredictable results.
The unbridled consumerism, the precariousness of work, the immediate dispensability of all. The man and the woman, both in full distress and yet needing to survive in full fiction of happiness. Humanity becomes rabid in a secretly hostile world.
And in that tightrope walk, Alicia takes the opportunity to present a stark story, with a little of everything, with the lucidity of friendship and the frenzy of sex, with the worst of what we are emerging among the routine, with desperation as the only horizon...
I immediately get hooked on each book by this author and Petra, delicate in laughter, only with the occurrences of heron gives it that touch of humor and grace. I have already read 14 real books that thank you for the entertaining content of each book.
This author is curious to me because it seems that I hear the same voice in the narrator as when I hear her in interviews, hehe. You can see the same sly humor between the characters and the author.
Where nobody finds you will always be the first in my ranking of this author. All the best
If it is that…, it is so clear. Greetings !!