“Don’t worry. I won’t even ask who the other one is, apart from Muscles . . . OK, I’m off. Thanks for everything.”
“When will you be back?”
“When I write another story or they kill another transvestite. Here’s the book by Muscles you lent me, so I don’t owe you anything, do I? Well, next to nothing . . .” he said, and stretched his hand out to the Marquess, who placed his squalid bony structure on the Count’s palm. If Fatman Contreras grabs you . . . the lieutenant thought, and lightly pressed the dramatist’s hand, but dropped it immediately, for he thought he glimpsed a dangerous advance light up on the Marquess’s face. Does he want to kiss me? No, that’s not on, he thought, and went into the street, where a magenta sun was putting its final delicate purple touches to the languid, velvety death agony of a Sunday afternoon more pansied than Alberto Marqués himself.
As he dived into the old part of the city, the Count’s eyes interrogated every woman who crossed his path: could she be a transvestite, he wondered, looking for a revealing detail in her make-up, hands, the shape of her breasts and curve of her buttocks. Two young women who were walking along, swinging their hips, arm-in-arm, struck him as slightly suspect of transformism, but the half-dark in the street didn’t allow him to reach a verdict. He then understood that he wanted to meet a transvestite. Why? he wondered, unable to find an answer, and, as he walked up to Polly’s flat, he thought how he should rid his head of all that ballast if he wanted to lift himself up and enjoy the spectacle of seeing a female, especially a Cuban female on a street in Havana, and think those dancing breasts, unattainable buttocks and juicy lips might be just for him.
Polly welcomed him in her doorway, barely covered by a white dressing gown which revealed the reddish dark of her nipples and the black of her nether hair. She didn’t given him a chance to speak but leapt on him and shot her tongue between his lips, like an anxious snake.
“Oh God, how wonderful, my heterosexual policeman,” she cried when she’d finished her frisking by mouth, and her hand pressed the perky tumescence of a Count who asked her, bursting with pride: “Were you expecting me?”
“What do you think, you macho Stalinist? And what have you got in that bag?” was what she then asked as she turned to look inside his pack, but the Count stopped her.
“Wait, first I’ve got to ask you something . . . Can I stay here for three days, without going out or seeing the sun?”
She smiled and showed a row of sharp little sparrow teeth.
“Doing what?”
“Something you never tire of . . .”
“I think so.”
“Well, take my bag and put it in the sideboard. I’ve brought ten eggs, a can of sardines, two bottles of rum, five boxes of cigars, a chunk of bread and a packet of macaroni. That will make us strong enough to resist the siege . . . You got any coffee? Good, then we’re invincible, like Milton.”
“Which Milton?”
“The Brazilian musician . . . Now I need to make a telephone call,” he said finally, as he stripped his shirt off.
“Boss, listen to me and prepare to fall off your chair,” he said as he smiled and told him the last possible revelation on the masquerade of Faustino Arayán. “Well, what do you reckon?”
“What I said before: this country has gone mad.” And his voice sounded neutral, neither astonished nor exhausted: it was simply an empty voice, and the Count thought what he’d thought on other occasions: his voice was the mirror of his soul.
“OK, I’ve earned my week off, haven’t I?”
“Yes, you certainly have. I hope one day you’ll decide to be a good policeman . . . Talking of which, will you tell me some time why you ever joined the police, eh, Conde?”
“Well, I’ll try to find out and then I’ll tell you . . . Oh, I can tell you one thing I do know: you’re the best police chief in the world, whatever they say or do.”
“Thanks, Mario, it’s always good to know such things, though they sometimes don’t help one little bit.”
“Yes, they do help, Boss, and you know it. Look after yourself and I’ll see you Monday,” he said as he hung up to ring Skinny’s number. It only needed three rings.
“Skinny, it’s me.”
“Go on, wild man. You going to drop by?”
“No, I can’t tomorrow or the day after . . . I’m with little sparrow butt. I asked her for asylum for three days.”
“Hey, have you fallen for that little madcap?”
“I don’t know, Skinny. I think my thinking head isn’t thinking so much, and it’s just as well.”
“Sure . . . But watch the other head, for when it fancies an idea . . .”
“Note down my number. Six, one, three, four, five, six. That’s for you and old Josefina, but don’t give it out even to death if she makes a call. Or the Guggenheim Foundation, or Salinger if he comes to Havana to see me, right? Oh, give it to Red Candito if he needs me for something . . .”
“And what if those investigators want to see you?”
“Let them go to hell. Skinny, to hell, or they can set their sniffer dogs after me. We’re going to mount the Cuban version of The Fugitive . . . Oh, and I was forgetting the most important thing with all this shit I’m pouring out: buy two bottles of rum for Wednesday, and I’ll give you the money. It’s my birthday present. I’ll call Andrés and the Rabbit to see what we can think up for the day, all right?”
“No problem. Do you know what the old woman wants to do on my birthday? She says an Argentine roast-up, with best beef, porterhouse, fillet, chitterlings . . . Hey, and remember you didn’t bring me a photocopy of your story, right?”
“But I’ll bring it on Wednesday . . . What’s happening about Dulcita?”
The Count knew he would have to wait and he waited with all the patience he could muster.
“Nothing, Conde, what the fuck can I do? If she comes, well, let her come, and I’ll see her and tell her: ‘It’s life, my love.’ ”
“Yes, it’s life, a fuck-up. Well, let’s speak later. A big hug for my brother,” and he hung up.
Polly was waiting for him on the edge of her bed, a glass of rum in each hand, and the Count thought it wasn’t right to feel happy while Skinny, who was no longer skinny, a victim of a geopolitical war in which he’d been a pawn destroyed, had had shut off any avenue to that necessary satisfaction and he anguished over the idea that one of his old flames might see him at the bottom of the void. He caressed Polly’s fringe, chose the fullest glass and went out shirtless on to the small balcony wanting to relieve his physical and mental heat, and observed, as night began to fall, the roof terraces of Old Havana, spiky with aerials, desire to collapse and stories impossible to contain. Why the hell did it have to be like that? Because life is like that and not any other way. Was it possible to retrace steps and right wrongdoings, mistakes, errors? Impossible, Conde, though you can still be invincible, he told himself, when, in the heart of that darkness, he spotted the extravagant flight of that white pigeon, which sprang from a dream and mocked her habits as a daytime animal, defied the torrid night and soared high, relentlessly vertical, and then opened her wings and pirouetted strangely, as if at that moment she had discovered the dizzy sensation of plunging into the void, till he lost sight of her, behind a building worm-eaten by time. I’m that pigeon, he thought, and thought that, like her, he could do nothing else: only soar high till he disappeared into the night-time sky.
Mantilla, 1994 – 5
FEVER
Friedrich Glauser
“With good reason, the German language prize for detective fiction is named after Glauser. . . He has Simenon’s ability to turn a stereotype into a person, and the moral complexity to appeal to justice over the head of police procedure.”
Times Literary Supplement
When two women are “accidentally” killed by gas leaks, Sergeant Studer investigates the thinly disguised double murder in Bern and Basel. The trail leads to a geologist dead from a tropical fever in a Moroccan
Foreign Legion post and a murky oil deal involving rapacious politicians and their henchmen. With the help of a hashish-induced dream and the common sense of his stay-at-home wife, Studer solves the multiple riddles on offer. But assigning guilt remains an elusive affair.
Fever, a European crime classic, was first published in 1936 and is the third in the Sergeant Studer series published by Bitter Lemon Press.
Praise for Glauser’s other Sergeant Studer novels
“Thumbprint is a fine example of the craft of detective writing in a period which fans will regard as the golden age of crime fiction.“ Sunday Telegraph
“Thumbprint is a genuine curiosity that compares to the dank poetry of Simenon and reveals the enormous debt owed by Dürenmatt, Switzerland’s most famous crime writer, for whom this should be seen as a template.” Guardian
“A despairing plot about the reality of madness and life, leavened at regular intervals with strong doses of bittersweet irony. The idiosyncratic investigation of In Matto’s Realm and its laconic detective have not aged one iota.” Guardian
“Glauser was among the best European crime writers of the inter-war years. The detail, place and sinister characters are so intelligently sculpted that the sense of foreboding is palpable.” Glasgow Herald
£9.99/$14.95
Crime paperback original
ISBN 1 – 904738 – 14 – 1/978 – 1904738 – 14 – 5
www.bitterlemonpress.com
FRAMED
Tonino Benacquista
“One of France’s leading crime and mystery authors.“
Guardian
Antoine’s life is good. During the day he hangs pictures for the most fashionable art galleries in Paris. Evenings he dedicates to the silky moves and subtle tactics of billiards, his true passion. But when Antoine is attacked by an art thief in a gallery his world begins to fall apart. His maverick investigation triggers two murders — he finds himself the prime suspect for one of them — as he uncovers a cesspool of art fraud. A game of billiards decides the outcome of this violently funny tale, laced with brilliant riffs about the world of modern art and the parasites that infest it.
In 2004 Bitter Lemon Press introduced Tonino Benacquista to English-speaking readers with the critically acclaimed novel Holy Smoke.
PRAISE FOR FRAMED
“Screenwriter for the award-winning French crime movie The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Tonino Benacquista is also a wonderful observer of everyday life, petty evil and the ordinariness of crime. The pace never falters as personal grief collides with outrageous humour and a biting running commentary on the crooked world of modern art.”
Guardian
“Edgy, offbeat black comedy.” The Times
“Flip and frantic foray into art galleries and billiards halls of modern Paris.” Evening Standard
“A black comedy that is set in Paris but reflects its author’s boisterous Italian sensibility. The manic tale is told by an apprentice picture-hanger who encounters a thief in a fashionable art gallery and becomes so caught up in a case of art fraud that he himself ‘touches up’ a Kandinsky.”
New York Times
£9.99/$14.95
Crime paperback original
ISBN 1 – 904738 – 16 – 8/978 – 1904738 – 16 – 9
www.bitterlemonpress.com
HAVANA BLACK
Leonardo Padura
A MARIO CONDE MYSTERY
“The mission of that enterprising Bitter Lemon Press is to publish English translations of the best foreign crime fiction. The newest addition to its list is the prize-winning Cuban novelist Leonardo Padura” The Telegraph
The brutally mutilated body of Miguel Forcade is discovered washed up on a Havana beach. Head smashed in by a baseball bat, genitals cut off with a blunt knife. Forcade was once responsible for confiscating art works from the bourgeoisie fleeing the revolution. Had he really returned from exile just to visit his ailing father?
Lieutenant Mario Conde immerses himself in Cuba’s dark history, expropriations of priceless paintings now vanished without trace, corruption and old families who appear to have lost much, but not everything.
Padura evokes the disillusionment of a generation, yet this novel is a eulogy to Cuba, and to the great friendships of those who chose to stay and fight for survival.
PRAISE FOR HAVANA BLACK
“A great plot, perfectly executed with huge atmosphere. You can almost smell the cigar smoke, rum and cheap women.”
Daily Mirror
“This is a strong tasting book. A rich feast of wit and feeling.” The Independent
“Well-plotted second volume of Padura’s seething, steamy Havana Quartet. This densely packed mystery should attract readers outside the genre.” Publishers Weekly
“Lt. Mario Conde, known on the street as ‘the Count,’ is prone to metaphysical reflection on the history of his melancholy land but the city of Havana keeps bursting through his meditations, looking very much alive.”
New York Times
£9.99/$14.95
Crime paperback original
ISBN 1 — 904738 — 15 — X/978 — 1904738 — 15 — 2
www.bitterlemonpress.com
THE MANNEQUIN MAN
Luca Di Fulvio
Shortlisted for the European Crime Writing Prize
“Di Fulvio exposes souls with the skills of a surgeon, It’s like turning the pages of something forbidden — seduction, elegant and dangerous.” Alan Rickman
“Know why she’s smiling?” he asked, pointing a small torch at the corpse. “Fish hooks. Two fish hooks at the corners of her mouth, a bit of nylon, pull it round the back of the head and tie a knot. Pretty straightforward, right?” Amaldi noticed the metallic glint at the corners of the taut mouth.
Inspector Amaldi has enough problems. A city choked by a pestilent rubbish strike, a beautiful student harassed by a telephone stalker, a colleague dying of cancer and the mysterious disappearance of arson files concerning the city’s orphanage. Then the bodies begin to appear.
This novel of violence and decay, with its vividly portrayed characters, takes place over a few oppressive weeks in an unnamed Italian city that strongly evokes Genoa.
The Italian press refers to Di Fulvio as a grittier, Italian Thomas Harris, and Eyes of Crystal, the film of the novel, was launched at the 2004 Venice Film Festival.
“A novel that caresses and kisses in order to violate the reader with greater ease.” Rolling Stone
“A powerful psycho-thriller of spine-shivering intensity . . . written with immense intelligence and passionate menace.
Not to be read alone at night.” The Times
“A wonderful first novel that will seduce the fans of deranged murderers in the style of Hannibal Lecter. And beautifully written to boot.” RTL
£9.99/$14.95
Crime paperback original
ISBN 1 – 904738 – 13 – 3/978 – 1904738 – 13 – 8
www.bitterlemonpress.com
THE SNOWMAN
Jörg Fauser
“A gritty and slyly funny story. About the life of the underdog, the petty criminal, the fixer, the prostitute and the junkie. With a healthy dose of wit.” Cath Staincliffe, author of the Sal Kilkenny series
Blum’s found five pounds of top-quality Peruvian cocaine in a suitcase. His adventure started in Malta, where he was trying to sell porn magazines, the latest in a string of dodgy deals that never seem to come off. A left-luggage ticket from the Munich train station leads him to the cocaine. Now his problems begin in earnest. Pursued by the police and drug traffickers, the luckless Blum falls prey to the frenzied paranoia of the cocaine addict and dealer. His desperate and clumsy search for a buyer takes him from Munich to Frankfurt, and finally to Ostend. This is a fast-paced thriller written with acerbic humour, a hardboiled evocation of drugfuelled existence and a penetrating observation of those at the edge of German society.
Jörg Fauser, born in Germany in 1944, was a novelist, essayist and journalist. Having
broken his dependency on heroin at the age of thirty, he spent much of the rest of his working life dependent on alcohol. He nevertheless produced three successful novels, including The Snowman. On 16 July 1987 he had been out celebrating his forty-third birthday. At dawn, instead of going home, he wandered on to a stretch of motorway, by chance or by choice, and was struck down by a heavy-goods lorry. He died instantly.
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