El salto de la araña / A Leap Into The Void

A bad night.

A bad night for the police officers who have just arrived, knowing full well that what they are going to find is only a body. A body which can only wait for the forensic surgeon, the judicial team in full and the morgue people do their job. And that, at last, they let it rest in peace.

Vilafamés (Castellón), August, 2018. A couple of days after the local festivities, a crime, a death that should have never occurred, disrupts the tranquillity of Vilafamés. Javier Márquez and Alba Gimeno, a young couple with two kids are detained as alleged perpetrators of a homicide, later charged and judged before the Provincial Courts of Castellón. The press and the neighbours have already condemned them. Nobody can understand what can have made them think up and commit such a monstrous crime. Javier, advised by his lawyer, decides to write down his story, to give his version of the events. About how some time ago he took a leap into the void and became a delinquent in the eyes of everybody.

Reality and fiction weave together in this novel written in the first person, a story about ordinary people in whom we can easily recognize ourselves. Who hasn’t ever wanted to retrace one’s steps and undo what’s been done?  With sincerity and the benefit of the hindsight, Graziela Moreno writes of love, friendship, the vulnerability, the blame and forgiveness. To accept responsibility for our errors helps us understand who we are. Not always we are given a second opportunity. Or perhaps we are.