In the last week of the last Madrid Book Fair, back in June, a question began to circulate among readers passing through El Retiro: Who was Lorenzo G. Acebedo, the mysterious author of La tavern de Silos? Signed under a pseudonym and starring Gonzalo de Berceo, the novel was the ideal mix of noir and historical genres, and thanks to anachronistic but effective word of mouth, copies flew from the Tusquets publishing stand. Months later, the mystery of authorship remains unsolved, but the success of this story of books, murders and wine in the 13th century proves the vitality of a hybrid that has become the publishing world's latest bet for the genre most popular with readers. It's worth clarifying something before proceeding. Not every crime novel set in the past is a historical thriller (for example, not the great Quirke stories written by Benjamin Black and set in Ireland in the 1950s), nor is every historical crime novel, like that for example the Hilary saga. Coat about Henry VIII, can be classified into this hybrid.
It is impossible to talk about historical crime novels without referring to The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, but there is also Philip Kerr with his Bernie Gunther series (a Philip Marlowe in Nazi Germany) or the thirty novels of Anne Perry with Thomas and Charlotte Pitt. Then why this resurgence? Where is the key to success? “So difficult to write, this genre offers readers the opportunity to sharpen their wit and learn more about an era. And they are stories of very high sophistication,” explains María Fasce, editor of Alfaguara Negra, a label that has paid particular attention to this trend. Added to this is the editorial hunger, the desire to impose one fashion on another (Scandinavian, domestic, rural, cozy, enigmatic, etc.) in order to exploit the dynamism and breadth of the genre.
More information
A regular guest of this hybrid, especially thanks to the series by Víctor Ros, is Jerónimo Tristant, who has just won the VI with “Pamfleten” (Algaida). Won the National Police Novel Award. The novel tells of the hunt for a woman murderer in Flanders in 1576 under the rule of the Tercios. If we talk about awards, part of the current momentum is thanks to another, the Planeta, which won La bestia by Carmen Mola in 2021. Leaving aside the noise about authorship (then finding out who the three authors behind the pseudonym were), what remains is a novel with the ingredients that work in this mix. However, the trio came to the genre in a strange way. “The pandemic hit us: we were locked up at home and didn't know how we were going to get out or if we were going to get out at all. We wrote what became The Mothers [cuarta entrega de la serie iniciada por La novia gitana] And we had a problem: it would be old before it came out. That’s why we chose the historical thriller,” says Jorge Díaz, one of the three members of the group. Now they have returned with “Infierno” (Planeta), a crime novel, a historical novel about slave-owning Cuba and a soap opera all in one. “Both camps have to work: the thriller part, the crimes, trying to figure out who the murderer is, and then the historical part. If you miss one thing, the novel is lame,” analyzes Díaz.
Hervé Le Corre, in Barcelona in 2020. Consuelo Bautista
The Molas took a path that in recent years has had great representatives such as the French Hervé Le Corre (“Under the Flames” or “After the War”, both in Reservoir Books, considered two of the best historical thrillers of the decade) or Niklas Natt och Dag with its powerful crime trilogy set in Sweden at the end of the 18th century, starting with the dazzling 1793 (Salamandra). There is no era that escapes scrutiny, and so we have, for example, the violent and epic “The Law of Wolves” (Alfaguara Negra) by Stefano De Bellis and Edgardo Fiorillo, set in Cicero's Rome. Without forgetting the fertile field of the Nazi era, in particular with Jean-Christophe Grangé and “Death in the Third Reich” (Destiny) and Fabiano Massimi, author of works such as “The Angel of Munich” (about the murder of Hitler's niece) or the recent “Winton”. Children, both in Alfaguara.
Two essential elements of this hybrid genre can be clearly seen in these works. On the one hand, mix historical characters with some fictional ones; on the other hand, to shed light on a not so well-known fact and use its narrative power. This is what Juan Ramón Biedma usually does, who uses this resource again in Crisanta (Alianza), a novel about crime and ghosts in Civil War Seville. “The historical novel must have a purpose: to uncover, explore, and open debate about a dark area. In Crisanta, the basic idea was to make known a city in the hinterland of 1936 and the coexistence of terror and everyday life. These are moments that are forgotten and it is appealing to illuminate them,” he explains. Also set in Seville is La Babilonia, 1580 (Alfaguara) by Susana Martín Gijón, which adds a touch of social criticism that was very present in her previous novels (particularly the Camino Vargas trilogy). As a big reader of the historical genre, she encountered a common challenge when constructing this story: “The crime novel needs to be fast and agile, and to immerse yourself in the historical novel, you need to be more descriptive,” and that needs to be balanced. . It was a process that didn't go smoothly at first: at every moment you stumbled over everything that the historical context implied. When you know reality well and feel that you are there, everything flows. It’s much more sophisticated and expensive.”
The dilemma and the balance
Documentation is a big problem with these types of books. Díaz explains it this way: “The biggest mistake is to research too much and try to get everything you've learned.” You discover millions of things, but you have to measure yourself against them, there are things that make you sad do if you leave them out, but the novel has to work. You have to give them the feeling of discovering something without overwhelming them. People want to end up saying, “I had a good time, but I learned.” When Massimi spoke about his investigation into Hitler's family environment, he explained it for EL PAÍS in 2020: “The Angel of Munich contains on his Pages include a historical novel, a possible crime of passion, a secret behind closed doors and a classic trial. . The case is too mysterious, too surprising, too essential, too sensitive, too everything. My idea was: let's find a way to put it all into a 400-page novel, intense and fast. In the end I failed: there are 500 and I had to leave things out. “I could have written 1,000 and there would still be elements left that I could tell.” Biedma, in turn, highlights another important aspect: “More important than the documentation is the selection. With digitalization, documentation is now no longer so distant from humans, it is much more accessible. The most important thing is to design the performance to be different and original.”
Geli Raubal with Goebbels and Hitler.
This mix of genres has another appeal: it can provide clues to the turbulent times. Peruvian author Santiago Roncagliolo puts it this way: “I believe that the past is part of the present. And I like to explore how it marks, hurts and attracts us. I always write thrillers, whether psychological or political. I examine the figures that scare us: terrorists, perpetrators. This time I was interested in the idea of the witch: Satan's messenger. Traveling to the American colonies, this figure embodied the patriarchal power and fear of otherness that still exists in the Hispanic world. “I wanted to show when we started to be what we are.” The author has deviated a little from his immersion with thriller resources in his country's recent history (Red April or maximum punishment) to go into a 17th century. Century full of extraordinary events, witches and nuns with adventurous spirit to immerse themselves in the entertaining and original The Year the Demon was Born (Seix Barral).
To explain the historical thriller's success, however, we perhaps need to look at the simplest thing: it pleases and entertains with quality. This is how Juan Cerezo sees it, editor of La tavern de Silos, which has thousands of readers waiting for a sequel. “There is a joie de vivre in this novel that does not detract from the touch of erudition that we like.”
All the culture that goes with it awaits you here.
Subscribe to
Babelia
The literary news analyzed by the best critics in our weekly newsletter
GET IT
Limited time special offer
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_