Death on a Galician Shore by Domingo Villar

A body of a fisherman has washed ashore on the Galician Shore, and the general belief is that the fisherman had committed suicide. Inspector Leo Caldas and his subordinate Rafael Estevez investigate the death. Leo Caldas is not satisfied that the death is a suicide and believes that there is more to this death as he realises that the fisherman was recently spooked by messages and events that reminded him of a shipwreck that happened nearly ten years before. If it is not suicide, how was he murdered and why? Does the mystery of this death lie in the shipwreck? What happened in the shipwreck? Out of the four crew members, the captain died in the shipwreck, while somehow his crew managed to survive. What happened that night? If something suspicious did happen, why is somebody involved in the shipwreck, killing after all this years?

Leo's father maintains an interesting book, a list of all the umm.... Idiots he meets, called the Book of Idiots. Leo still participates in the Radio Program as he was in the previous book Water-Blue Eyes, and he is both irritated with the presenter and the public.

If you thought only those who have recently moved to Galicia are exasperated by the inability of the Galicians to answer questions directly. We also find that it is a problem even to those who have settled here for a long while.

Our heroes are obsessed with the cases, they don't have families and can even work on weekends. What about their subordinates? Do they have a family, girlfriend etc? And are they obsessed with the cases too? And how do they feel about their bosses for taking them on wild goose hunts on weekends? Rafa, as Leo calls him, is quite vocal about his spoiled plans for the weekend. Interestingly, I quite like the tumbling bull in the shop, Rafa , ready for a fight, easily ruffled and easily angry.

Domingo Villar paints a beautiful picture of a fishing village in the Galician Shore and takes on a voyage on a stormy night in a Ship to the roots of the crime. I enjoyed this book as much as I enjoyed Villar's Water-Blue Eyes and look forward to read other books that would appear in this series. 

Translated from Spanish by Sonia Soto.

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