Natura quasi morta

The panel considered that Natura Quasi Morta, a rare crime fiction novel coming from one of Spain’s most distinguished authors, would be a valuable addition to the genre in the UK

“Natura quasi morta (Quasi Still Life) is in fact a mix of detective and campus fiction set in a very contemporary European university context familiar to the author, with a significant amount of social criticism thrown in, especially of university staff and students. Loosely based on the true case of a French Erasmus student who disappeared from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where Riera herself is professor of Spanish Literature, the style of the book owes a debt to other detective-story writers from Spain such as Manuel Vázquez Montalbán and Andreu Martín, and international writers such as Donna Leon and the Scandinavians [...] “

“The style of the book is fast-moving and easy to read [...] and the dialogue is fluent and very believable. Although set in a Catalan university, the setting should be culturally accessible to most English-speaking readers, who may just need a brief reminder about a couple of things such as the Bologna Process.” (From the reader report by Judith Willies [3])