Eduardo Mendoza

Nick Caistor

"Call it natural selection, call it the law of the jungle, what rises to the top in the seething turmoil of Barcelona is the cream - or is it the scum? In the late 1940s the Civil War is past history but Franco is still very much in charge. Prullas, a popular playwright whose day is now past, leaves his wife by the seaside while he pursues a crowded life in the stifling city: his producer, Gaudet, wants him to persuade their rich backer Vallsigorri that they really cannot use the third-rate actress Lili whom the backer wants to foist on him. In the course of playing honest broker, however, Prullas starts an affair with Lili, but then thinks twice about crossing her protector who is, after all, backing his play, and tries to break off his liaison. Fate intervenes, however, when Vallsigorri is found murdered and Prullas, albeit innocent, becomes the prime suspect.

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