The Mystery of the Enchanted Crypt

The first adventure of Mendoza's unnamed protagonist, who finds himself temporarily released from the asylum to investigate a series of disappearances from Barcelona's most distinguished girls' boarding school. Lots of entertaining spoof gothic fun with secret passages and fainting young women in nightgowns, and a satirical undercurrent in which we are shown how little things have changed with the recent transition from Francoism to democracy. The pace is rather manic, with all the traditional elements of the noir detective story - turned on their heads, naturally - packed into two or three hectic days. Mendoza says in his foreword to the recent reprints that he wrote the book on a whim and without any real plan, in the space of a show more single week of effort that must have been almost as hectic as the action of the story. And he clearly had a lot of fun doing it! show less

H-i-l-a-r-i-s-c-h!

1.5

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