Free association of ideas is what you have. As soon as I knew about the new novel by Antonio Garrido: «The garden of enigmas», I remembered the famous oil painting by Bosco. Yes, the one that exchanges riddles for delights.
It will be a matter of the parallel exuberance between the famous painting and the author's long literary career, who knows?
Particular notes aside, the point is that under the seal Espasa publishing house, from November 26 we will be able to enjoy a new great novel by Antonio Garrido. A fascinating plot with a nineteenth-century setting that plunges us into the lights and shadows of a world devoted to modernity, with that chiaroscuro effect of great suspense stories.
«The Garden of Enigmas is an absorbing thriller set in Victorian London, inspired by the mysterious events surrounding the Great World's Fair of 1851.
Rick Hunter, a bounty hunter with a dark past, and Daphne Loveray, a debauched mathematician, star in this gripping crime-studded story, in which they must discover the murderers in the setting of a London in full industrial boiling.
In between, the secret services of the Foreing Office and a mysterious cryptographic language, extracted from the Turkish harems, involved in a gigantic criminal conspiracy.
Between reality and fiction
The historical framework of the novel takes us to London in the months prior to the celebration of the first Universal Exhibition, a hive of workers and machinery in which they work against the clock to complete the works on time.
In this surprising environment, our protagonists will have to face dangerous conflicts related to Victorian politics and customs, such as the Opium Wars between the British Empire and lavish China, with the shadow of the powerful East India Company as a sinister actress throughout. the novel.
Along with the protagonists, we will find real characters from that extraordinary adventure, such as Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister, or Lord Henry Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, who will be essential for the resolution of the enigmatic events that are narrated.
The language of flowers
In the early Victorian era, when strict morals prevented the manifestation of passions, flower arrangements became the ideal medium for sending messages. King Charles II of England himself established a code of his own inspired by the Turkish harems, and instructed the Hartford family of Edinburgh, his personal gardeners, in the occult art.
For two centuries, the Hartfords stealthily guarded "the secret of the flowers," until the widow Hellen Hartford moved to London to run Passion of the Orient, the flower room that the nobility would choose to produce the most suggestive messages. Thus, under its exotic bouquets, the most sordid stories of lust and sex began to circulate at the sophisticated parties of Kensington Palace.
But not only those kinds of messages ...
A tribute to the great English narrative of the XNUMXth century
There is much of the harsh realism of Oliver TwistDickens's description of life in the London underworld. Also in that of many characters, condemned to live badly and die badly in a city where rats roam freely and children stop being so as soon as they are weaned.
From a good friend of Dickens, Wilkie collins -from The moonstone- drink one of the most exotic subplots of the novel. It has its roots in colonial India, in stories that combine imperial glory and the corruption of the governmental apparatus with the curses linked to ancient Hindu cults.
Conan Doyle y Defoe, seem to appear in two very different characters:
Rick Hunter, the protagonist, has made observation and deduction skills his modus vivendi; indeed, without such abilities he would have already died in one of the many cases he faces as a bounty hunter. His personal epic also oozes a few drops from Count Monte Cristo, from Alexandre Dumas.
For his part, the ingenious Memento has something of Robinson Crusoe: he lives in isolation and invents gadgets that help him survive in the urban jungle.
Finally, the dialogues between Rick and Daphne and the scenes in the florist shop, the Cremorne gardens and the aristocratic mansions celebrate the wit, wit, intelligence and delicacy of some of the great novelists of the first half of the XNUMXth century, with Austen and Brontë in the lead.
A fascinating gallery of characters
Rick HUNDER
Who is Rick Hunter really? What dark secrets is hidden under that false identity? Why is your torso streaked with scars? And now, why would an educated man like him work as a bounty hunter, associated with an unscrupulous guy like Joe Sanders?
There are more questions in Rick's personality than certainties. We know that you want revenge on someone who caused you irreparable harm in the past; who has remarkable knowledge of botany; who hates the rich; that he is attractive and a good fighter, and that in India he left more than a part of his life. The novel is narrated in a third person, focused on him.
Daphne LOVERAY
Beautiful and enigmatic, her striking blue eyes illuminate everything they look at. She is an aristocrat who does not mind mixing with ordinary people to enjoy life. Her husband is more concerned with her paintings than with her. She is a woman ahead of her time: cultured, polyglot, with knowledge of mathematics ... and very liberal in love and sex.
She also hides secrets that can be deadly. Your collaboration with Foreign Office It is one of them. The weapon that is always hidden is another. What does he really do?
JOE SDIFFERENT
He's Rick's boss — rather than partner — taking a much larger percentage of the rewards they collect than he does. Without Joe, Rick would not have been in that trade. He's a thick, dirty, greasy guy. Rick hates him, hates his meanness, his violent nature and his obsessive interest in money. However, you must take care of him, as Joe knows more about his past than Rick realizes.
MEMENT MORI
Rick's only friend. Of middle age, he lives confined in a Southwark correctional warehouse, working with machines. He makes a living repairing, manipulating, transforming, and building mechanical devices that he sells to workshops. His appearance is that of a monstrosity out of a nightmare. An explosion disfigured his face, leaving it without eyelids, which he tries to hide under dark glasses.
HEllen HARTFORD
Owner of the florist "Eastern Passion”, Is a fat widow with an inflexible character, who lives in anguish over an issue that she refuses to discuss with anyone. You have been awarded the Great Show flower arrangement, but it will be a deal with dire consequences.
LORD BRADBURY
Businessman, philanthropist and man with enormous influence in government. Despite his mobility problems, he is aware of everything that is cooked in Britain and in the colonies. A friend of the late Mr. Hartford, he has assisted his widow in securing her contract with the Great Exhibition. He is also Daphne Loveray's protector in the ForeignOffice.
GCONSTITUTION GRUNER
Consul of Germany, personal adviser to Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, and responsible for the security of the Crystal Palace, the site where the World's Fair will be held. However, both Rick and Daphne are convinced that this conceited character hides other less confessional activities.
PENNY
Shop assistant at the florist Eastern Passion, hides a little edifying past, since she worked as a prostitute. Gaunt-looking, with swollen gums and destroyed teeth, the result of a poor diet, poor hygiene habits and, surely, some disease, he is a gossip and a good person.
KARUM DASWANI
Indian entrepreneur with business interests in London. He is one of those responsible for the pavilion of his country at the Great Exhibition. His appearance is formidable, tall and herculean. In addition to his well-known businesses, he runs a notorious opium den and brothel, a the material moisture meter shows you the Of which high officials and reputable merchants are clients.
London, more than a stage
In 1850, London underwent the tremendous transformation that would make it the most important city in the world for decades to come. At that time, it was already the largest international metropolis and the capital of the most powerful Empire.
Its vitality attracted hundreds of thousands of people from all over the UK and the colonies. The overcrowding caused the periodic outbreak of cholera epidemics. The most recent, in 1848, killed more than 14 people.
The growth of the city collapsed some streets that could not absorb the traffic of vehicles, animals and people. That precipitated the creation of a rail network that Rick Hunter tells us about.
The great event of the moment was the celebration of the first Universal Exhibition, whose headquarters was the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. Its official name was the Great Exhibition of the Works of the Industry of All Nations. Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, was its promoter after visiting the industrial exhibition in Paris. Its objective was the exhibition of curiosities and manufactures from around the world and the promotion of artistic education, industrial design, commerce, international relations and tourism, a phenomenon on the rise.
The reader's first contact with London occurs in the neighborhood of Seven Dials, in the Covent Garden area, at the time, among the most dangerous slums in the city.
The florist Eastern Passion it appears located in the district of Bayswater. Unlike other London neighborhoods, at that time it resembled a peaceful little town in which its neighbors had managed to prevent the advance of civilization from ruining the tranquility of their lives.
One of the key settings in the plot is the Cremorne Gardens, where Daphne and Rick have an intense encounter. Located on the banks of the Thames, the gardens lived their splendor years between 1845 and 1877. After passing through several hands, they became gardens open to the public, with great restaurants, dance halls, various attractions and even a hot air balloon from the that you could contemplate a wide panorama of the city.
We will also walk through some famous prisons and a few railway stations - several still under construction.
Of the capital of the Empire, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office building, in St. James's Park, and the luxurious and exclusive Mirvart's hotel, which is now the famous Claridege's hotel, stands out on Brook Street, in the Mayfair neighborhood.
The historical setting
We have already explained some of the salient elements of that historical period. However, to further enjoy the novel, we must put the adventures of Rick and Daphne in a broader framework.
The military campaigns of the British East India Company had, in the eighteenth century, opened the gates of India. In the 1842th century, with the Company as a banner, the British tried to spread throughout the Indian subcontinent in search of raw materials and new markets for their manufactures. In 1841 an Anglo-Indian force was shattered at the Battle of Gandamak, Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Ceylon and Burma joined the British territories in Asia, to which Hong Kong was added, in 1839, after the First Opium War, which took place between 1842 and XNUMX. There are several references to it in The garden of theriddles.
The England that we visited during the reading lived immersed in the so-called Victorian era, considered the culminating point of the Industrial Revolution and the British Empire. It was a very long period marked by the reign of Victoria I, from 1837 to 1901. During those decades, profound cultural, political and social changes took place.
The figure of Rick pays tribute to a pioneering body of modern police, the Bow Street Corridors, founded in 1749 by magistrate and novelist Henry Fielding. In 1829, the London Metropolitan Police, the popular Scotland Yard, was born. Both forces coexisted until 1838, when they merged.
Rick already points to the almost imminent appearance of private investigators, who had been working in France since the 1830s, thanks to the famous ex-policeman Eugène-François Vidocq.
For its part, the character of Daphne Loveray is strongly inspired by the British mathematician Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, better known as Ada Lovelace, the intelligent and beautiful daughter of Lord Byron. Despite the hypocrisy of the time, women were beginning to achieve some recognition in the letters, although not so much in the field of science.
You can now buy the novel The Garden of Enigmas, the new book by Antonio Garrido, here: