The Gypsy Bride

The first Elena Blanco novel has all the ingredients that later turned Carmen Mola into a phenomenon: the brutal crime, the investigator with her own wounds, contemporary Madrid as the setting and a pace that does not let you sleep. What distinguishes this series from the average Spanish thriller is that the antagonists have weight and that the protagonist is not likeable by convention but by being real. A solid genre entry and a good starting point for getting to know the authors behind the pseudonym.