The snuff box, by Javier Alonso García-Pozuelo

The snuff box, by Javier Alonso García-Pozuelo
click book

First of all I have to say that this great book that I am citing here today, makes a wonderful couple with Shooting stars fall, with a similar setting in nineteenth-century Madrid, only in the second case with a point of greater fantasy around the mystery.

And focusing on The snuff box, I think that our literature always lacked a Sherlock Holmes and consequently a Conan Doyle. It is never too late to find it under the proper authorship, that of Javier Alonso García-Pozuelo. His character, our new national police hero is called Inspector Benítez, a policeman about to abandon that dedication that has led him for decades through the streets of nineteenth-century Madrid, with its lights and shadows.

Although really the good Benítez knew more about the shadows of Madrid, specifically those of the Latina neighborhood, where what was left behind was much more than could be expected, in that kind of decadence among the hopeful gleams of the change of era.

So, after so long among the filth of those lawless streets, Benítez may not be at his best to display his skills. But there is no other choice but to deal with the case of the Ribalter maid.

The poor thing has turned up dead. And the poor Ribalter will undoubtedly have to pull another servant to cover their hole, not without enough organizational hassle to request reparation for the damage caused by the murder of the young woman.

Something that Benítez knew very well after so many years of dedication was that easy clues did not exist in treacherous murders like this one. The simple murderer can kill in daylight driven by rage. The murderer who takes refuge in loneliness never leaves an easy clue.

So the samples of theft as a final motive do not convince Benitez and therefore his faithful assistant Ortega.

And from that moment we enjoy the purest Holmesian puzzle. Interests, money, unleashed passions, frustrations, hidden miseries ... The classic maremagnun in which nothing is what it seems and what seems finally is not.

The evidence that leads to the murderer is usually always minute details, so small as to be hidden like a strand of tobacco in a snuffbox.

You can now buy the novel La cajita de snuff, the new book by Javier Alonso García-Pozuelo, here: 

The snuff box, by Javier Alonso García-Pozuelo
rate post

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.