Tom Nevinson

Marais, Javier

£22.00

Tomás Nevinson has left the secret service and returned to his old job working in the British Embassy in Madrid. Assumed dead by his wife Berta, Tomás attempts to resume his previous life and heal from his psychological wounds. But when he is contacted by his old boss, Bertram Tupra, Nevinson reluctantly becomes involved in a plan to locate and eliminate a woman believed to have helped orchestrate the 1987 Hipercor bombing. Detonated by the ETA, a Basque separatist group, the bomb killed 21 people and injured 45. Full of mesmerising intrigue, this novel offers a deep reflection into the moral dilemma of whether the killing of a presumed criminal can be justified.

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Publish Date: 30/03/2023

Description

THE FINAL NOVEL FROM THE GREATEST SPANISH WRITER OF HIS GENERATION, JAVIER MARÍAS

‘The most subtle and gifted writer in contemporary Spanish literature’ Boston Globe

Spain in the 1990s is beset by a simmering campaign of terror from Basque separatists ETA, with periodic atrocities shattering an illusory calm. Against this backdrop, retired British Secret Service member Tomás Nevinson – now living a quiet life in his hometown Madrid – is approached by his sinister former handler, Bertram Tupra, with an offer to bring him back in from the cold, for one last assignment: a favour for Tupra, for old times’ sake, which is also a favour for a powerful Spanish friend.

His mission: to go back undercover, in a small Spanish town, to find out which of three women who moved there a decade ago is in fact an ETA terrorist, on loan from the IRA, now on the run and living there incognito.

Everything about the assignment is shadowy – from who exactly Nevinson will be working for to the question of what ‘justice’ he may need to mete out if he is somehow able to unmask one of the three women. But, still in his forties and lured by the appeal of once again being on the inside, he accepts the job.

As he gets closer to the three women, his task becomes ever harder. How – or who – to choose between these three? Intimately involved with each of them, as lover, colleague or friend, he can find no firm clue to resolve the question. But under increasing pressure from his paymasters, choose – and act – he apparently must . . .

Charting a world where right and wrong, and good and evil, are irreparably blurred, Javier Marìas takes us on a journey of rare and unforgettable suspense in this, the final novel written before his untimely passing in 2022.

PRAISE FOR JAVIER MARÍAS:

‘Unquestionably the most significant Spanish writer of his generation’ Observer

‘[Marìas] uses language like an anatomist uses a scalpel to lay bare the innermost secrets of that strangest of species, the human being’ W. G. Sebald

‘One of the greatest contemporary novelists’ Le Monde

‘A great writer’ Salman Rushdie

Additional information

Weight 840 g
Dimensions 236 × 162 × 42 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Hardback

Pages

684

Language

English

Edition

Hardback original

Dewey

863.7 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K