Las niñas perdidas
The Lost Girls | Roca, 2011
» Gijón Noir Week Director’s Award
» International Dashiell Hammett Prize for Detective Fiction 2012
» Shortlisted for the Violeta Negra Award 2014
There is another Barcelona: the one far removed from tourism and fashion.
It is in this other, villainous city that detective and ex-journalist Victoria González moves confidently. And being heavily pregnant doesn’t make it any easier. Victoria or Vicky was born in the suburbs and has her office in the neighbourhood of El Chino, is five-months gone and has a case of two dead little girls on her hands. Dead and tortured. Her faithful friend Jesús warns her it’s not the case for her, not in her condition. The commissioner says the same, as does her instinct. But this is enough for her not to give up.
The novel narrates the investigation from the point of view of this detective: the disappearance of two sisters aged 3 and 5, an uncomfortable tour through Barcelona’s underworld, a place where paedophilia, drug trafficking and child pornography are common currency.
«Dark humor and provocation. The characters, situations and narrative structure keep the reader breathless to the end.» M.-JS, L'Humanité
«A bold, talented writer, Cristina Fallarás roams the city as if in darkness and casts her spell with prose of overpowering realism and indignation that sweeps the reader along.» Christine Ferniot, Télerama
«A truly gritty novel with a highly unusual narrative structure. Written in jarring prose, it is unflinching and holds out little hope or possibility of redemption (…) A delight for film noir lovers and non-lovers alike.» Massimo Minimo, Thriller Pages
«Set in a Barcelona like you’ve never seen it before, Gaudi’s elegant spirals are warped beyond recognition, creating a psychedelic whirlwind in the fragmented narrative stylings of Cristina Fallarás, who brings us the story of the lost, or rather forsaken, girls.» Thrillercafe.it
«Surprising and original. Written in true cinematic style, Fallarás makes excellent use of imagery, with fast-paced, dynamic prose and rapid-fire, startling sentences, pumped up on adrenaline.» Thriller Magazine Italia
«A dark, very dark and bitter novel that almost sweats blood through its pages.» Milo J. Krmpotic, Qué Leer
«Such an intense and merciless novel.» Lilian Neuman, La Vanguardia
«Writing with character. Las niñas perdidas is a very dark, disturbing novel with a muscular style. Sober at first sight, it is lush with descriptions that defy convention. And among its depictions of the cheap shots of a hostile world, there are flashes of tenderness that ease the pressure of its suffocating atmosphere.» Tino Pertierra, La Nueva España
«Las niñas perdidas is a quite unique novel for the life it possesses.» Juanjo Blasco Panamá, Heraldo
France: Métailié; Italy: Feltrinelli
