Yesterday was mystery Sunday, the day of every week that I give myself the delicious escape of reading a mystery or thriller. The Man of My Life by Manuel Vazquez Montalban is a murder mystery wrapped in an enigma of religious sects contained within an examination of love and desire and bagged to overflowing with nationalism, fascism, communism, and recipe-ism.  Our benighted hero, Pepe Carvalho, is a shady mixture of Beckett, Bond, and Columbo, with just a pinch of James Beard thrown in to thrill the taste buds of all readers, aficionados of pork trotters (low cholesterol: who knew?) or not (I am not).

There is no doubt of the setting of The Man of My Life: Carvalho is a private detective in Barcelona, as evidenced by the many references to horchata, turron, and cava (an almond drink, an almond candy, and a catalan champagne) along with his ramblings along Las Ramblas, El Diagonal, and up to Montjuic. The final proof of setting is the strongest: Carvalho cannot get into a conversation without bringing in religion, nationalism, politics, or soccer.  He is not Catalan, can’t even speak the language, but he personifies the mythic Catalan personality of pessimism, worldliness, and honor. He spouts his dour philosophy while eyeing the girls and trying to save any lost souls thrown his way.

I am not sure I understood the plot of this overly-complicated mystery involving the murder of a young satanist who also happens to be the son of a major financial player in the Catalan business world and who might have been murdered by his lover who is also the son of a financial king, or might have been murdered by hit men borne of the former-Yugoslavia, and the murder might just be a cover for the establishment of a pan-national economic force that would ignore both Spain and Catalunya, while the whole thing is being monitored by a covert Catalan intelligence unit which the police is trying to shut down. Now add in the sudden re-appearance of Carvalho’s love of his life via seducting-fax (again, who knew?), a woman not to be confused with the sudden re-appearance of the prostitute of his life, via Andorra.  Get it?

The enjoyment of this book is to be found in neither the plot nor the love interests; it is in the vibrant and contradictory and beautiful Barcelona herself, stealer of the show and queen of the nights and days of Pepe Carvalho.

The Man of My Life was translated by Nick Caistor.