There is a Mediterranean crime novel that runs like a current between Greece, Italy and Spain. In Hellenic lands we have Petros markaris, in Italy it replicates Andrea Camilleri and on its western side, the immeasurable Váquez Montalban awaited them until recently.
So each novel by one of these authors is a new opportunity to delve into the origins of a genre that is now glorious in its effort to uncover the social miseries between the ominous and the criminal, but in the past not so easy to approach freely.
Today it is up to Markaris, unavailable to discouragement in his endeavor to uncover the extent of human greed. From the spaces of power where the state of things is manufactured, with the resigned feeling that nothing is going to change, only characters like Commissioner Jaritos become heroes of the symbolic.
And for that, you just have to find a sufficiently intense motivation to face everything. And, as often happens on many occasions, the focus of evil ends up turning to where we least expect.
For Jaritos, the long-awaited birth of his grandson brings a significant change in his private life. However, the joy for this emotional event is overshadowed by the call announcing the murder of a famous businessman, a hotel magnate, well known for his charitable contributions.
A new terrorist group? A personal revenge? As soon as the investigation begins, a manifesto appears claiming the death of the businessman, without explaining, however, the reasons; That must be found out by the police, whom they describe as a henchman of power.
It is only stated that the hotelier deserved death. You will not be the only victim that this strange group takes. All of them blameless, apparently. Until Jaritos starts digging.
Márkaris focuses, once again, on the decision-making centers, where populist policies are in reality a simple facade that hides a more bloody reality, full of hypocrisy.
You can now buy the novel "Hour of the Hypocrites", the book by Petros Markaris, here: