The 3 best books by Luis Esteban

They say that luck is sought. If the designs of fortune work like this, Louis Stephen he is a great supporter of that maxim. Because without a doubt you have to know how to work in a trade (in this case as a writer) but you also have to get to detect the opportunity to dazzle the staff and take them to their field.

Luis Esteban won the sympathy of millions of spectators But he ended up leaving everyone speechless when he introduced us to his stories, much more transcendent than the ephemeral glory of a television donut. Yes, that Pasapalabra from which he emerged triumphant with his display of great general culture.

The thing about police officers who end up turning to literature, and more specifically to the black genre, is already a trend confirmed by Luis Esteban himself along with other great writers like himself Victor of the Tree. Who better than them to introduce us to underworlds? How to know in depth so many corruptions that end up being linked to power? What better way to go down to the daily hell of our cities than guided by these maintainers of order?

With more or less fictional notes, the truth is that the profession will always serve as an inspiration for these types of writers. And the truth is that when the narrator Luis Esteban is discovered, one cannot help but recognize that good work towards the conquest of the bestseller in a black genre always eager for dark, disturbing, intense plots ...

3 best novels by Luis Esteban

The river was silent

In this book The river was silent, we find a police officer documented first-hand for any plot that comes his way. Zaragoza, my city, becomes that space where I can project so many real experiences transformed in the imagination to present a crime novel with an impeccable plot and spectacular resolution. With an evocative and precise language, with an overwhelming mastery of language to transmit sensations. and intended ideas, Luis Esteban delves into the resolution of two intertwined cases.

Both branches of the plot share in synthesis the idea of ​​prostitution (male and female), its dangerous world and its usual ignominious scenarios. And around them, sensitive aspects such as homophobia are dealt with, like any phobia taken to the extreme of the most violent of hatreds.

Because The river was silent It is a noir, detective novel, a fast-paced story where all the characters wander on a tightrope, from the police inspector Roy to the victims who appear, including characters that should belong to the most grandiose settings of society.

John Wayne as an indirect character. The photo of her on the corpse of a hustler. The idea of ​​a homophobic murderer as a starting point to delve into a sordid story, with that knowledge of what goes on in the underworld from an author with a doctorate in sordid affairs, thanks to his police work in real life.

But what we think is circumscribed to the lowest part of our society, to the nights and to the slums of the city, ends up splashing even to another part of the city, where suits and elegant women move.

Zaragoza and its fiestas del Pilar as a bustling background that gives rise to all kinds of excesses, even those that can provoke violence and homicidal instincts.
The river was silent, by Luis Esteban

morocco

In the particular acronym of Moroloco we find the perfect alias for the nuclear character of this novel. A leader of the underworld in a Campo de Gibraltar where one of the great black hashish markets in the world proliferates.

And the author of this novel knows about it well, a Louis Stephen whose performance as commissioner of the National Police in Algeciras gives the story the perfect dose of verisimilitude. To end up composing a scrupulous detective novel with the methodology in a plot that could well be a case of recent investigation. As soon as we enter this story about Moroloco we get that feeling of maximum tension due to the proximity between both spaces of reality and fiction, which which is the same as overwhelming realism in fast-paced action. We already know that the almost morbid taste of this type of literature lies in the reflection of the worst of our society. It's like taking a walk on the wild side, as Lou Reed sang.

From Moroloco we draw the heartbreaking map of influences and paid favors, of corruption and coercion. Nobody like a kingpin of this style to corrode the pillars of power. And thank God no one like a policeman confident in his mission to stop this assault that threatens to corrupt everything and give traffickers carte blanche.

To fill the plot, Moroloco, known for his close ties to power, ends up being tempted by his country's intelligence services to assume a role closer to espionage.

Gabriel Zabalza could go that far. The faithful commissioner of the National Police, always in the shadow of Moroloco, has him marked so closely, even drawing on resources external to the official, that he will soon suspect that the powerful criminal whom no one knows or can stop, is also immersed in a kind of mission that will entail even more dangers than his own dedication to enriching himself with narcotics.

Moroloco, by Luis Esteban

The inspector who milked cows

There is always something special in that first work that transcends even the general public. The narrative imprint of each author is overturned in that first book. In this case, the plot of the novel stands out as a unique mosaic between the detective genre and a kind of self-help realism.

Ignacio Azcona was a police inspector and had to recover from his visit to hell. Because the case from which he completely turned his life around was about to devour him. The most ominous of the human being always finds its reflection in the upper strata of any condition, because only among those who thrive can the most evil minds be found, winners at any price, selfish without moral limits.

It's not that they are all there, but some. A child prostitution network, an inspector like Ignacio Azcona convinced of doing good as a maximum necessity, whatever the cost. And it will cost, and little by little we understand what Ignacio is doing rebuilding himself on the coasts of Brazil. In the meantime, a police plot of maximum intensity and an existential adventure of the protagonist.

The Inspector Who Milked Cows, by Luis Esteban
5/5 - (11 votes)

2 comments on "The 3 best books by Luis Esteban"

  1. Luis Esteban has a fifth novel, BIOGRAFÍA DE TU AUSENCIA, with which he has won the 2022nd Ciudad de Las Palmas International Black Novel and Mystery Prize (XNUMX). It is a pity that the IDEA publishing house hardly distributes in the Peninsula and that this novel has gone almost unnoticed for that reason.

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