Carlos Barreto, Charli to his friends, is probably the worst detective who has ever wielded a magnifying glass and a pipe in Gran Canaria. However, if reading mystery novels counted as years of academy training, Charli would be closer to becoming a commissioner than an apprentice.
In Las cinco muertes de Jacinto Samitier, the pandemic catches Barreto in Lanzarote, where he works as a bodyguard for an elderly VIP who is a regular on reálitis shows and celebrity gossip media. On the return flight to Gran Canaria, all passengers test positive, and Charli is forced to spend a week confined in a house in Tafira Baja alongside a group of characters as eccentric as they are suspicious.
The lockdown would already be uncomfortable enough if it weren’t for the fact that one morning one of the guests is found stabbed to death, following to the letter the purest tradition of the novels Charli devours with devotion. Will he be able to solve the crime before reality definitively surpasses fiction?
Miguel Aguerralde delivers a fast-paced and entertaining novel, a classic whodunit filtered through a Canarian lens, with humor, irony, and a clear tribute to the genre.
