Planeta / The Planet

Camino Vargas Series 3

Acclaimed by readers and critics alike, Susana Martín Gijón, the winner of the Cubelles Noir Award and shortlisted for the Paco Camarasa Award, is back.

A body completely drained of blood found on a golf course puts the Seville Homicide Brigade in a tight spot again. The crime scene presents a gruesome sight: the victim is missing both feet. Camino Vargas will get involved in the investigation even though she has not yet got over the case of The Animalist in which police officer Evita Gallego died. She will have to cancel planned holidays with Paco Arenas, who finally moved in with her but is still suffering harmful consequences of the brutal hunting he was subjected to. The first inquiries will take the reader across the city of Seville, from the autonomous administration where the victim worked as an engineer to one of the most celebrated flamenco venues. All this will take place in a city on high alert, devastated by torrential rains and declared a “disaster-hit area”. Meanwhile in Italy, the chief inspector Barbara Volpe still believes that the case of The Animalist is not closed and investigates the death of two workers on the mink farm. They were killed in the same way animals are slaughtered: they were gassed and skinned. Barbara Volpe’s theory gains strength after receiving information that a keeper in the Genoa aquarium has been devoured by sharks and his criminal record contains a guilty verdict for poaching in the Garda Lake. But if Camino saw The Animalist die with her own eyes, who is behind this plot?

A bullet-proof formula to produce in the reader this singular mixture of deep indignation, almost physical discomfort and fascination. A fascinating case, physical and psychological violence, social and ideological commitment and once again a great subject; in Progeny, the secrets of assisted fertilization, in Species, the meat industry and animal experiments and here violent abuse of the environment and the danger of the ecoterrorism.