Juli Alandes' Crònica negra: A Review

Juli Alandes, Crònica negra (Alzira: Bromera, 2012). 270 pages.

You have to give it to Juli Alandes: he’s brave enough to make use of the delusional, ludicrous and unscientific argument (fundamentally predominant among right-wing and mostly pro-Spanish political parties and their followers) that Valencian and Catalan are not one and the same language as the background to this smart and entertaining detective novel. And he puts the icing on the cake by making a great display of the lexical wealth and varieties the Catalan language has in some of its regional or local manifestations.

To begin with, the main character, Miquel O’Malley, a recently graduated cop of Irish descent, born and grown in Barcelona, is transferred to València to learn the proverbial ropes. Miquel is a former student of the humanities and, as such, he quickly takes an interest in the historical details provided by the experts queried by the police. A series of gruesome murders — the killer places and later blasts a massive cracker in the corpse of a female victim, a US professor, plausibly as a hint to the spirit of Fallas — sends the Chief Inspector and his men on the hunt... yet there are no obvious suspects.

The narrative pace is mostly brisk; the dialogues (mostly those of the cops’ meetings at the station) are full of wit, sarcastic rejoinders and sexual innuendo. Never mind the fact that Valencian police would not in any case be proactive speakers of the language. Even today, it is highly more likely that you will be told to speak cristiano if you address them in the local language. But Alandes pushes ahead with his audacious characterisation of officers, detectives and inspectors and comes out triumphant in the end. Crònica Negra is replete with colourful, rich language, all of it well oiled with a delightful sense of humour. A good read, despite the many years since it was first published. Crònica Negra was awarded the 2011 Enric Valor Prize for Fiction in 2012.