Allende’s fluidly written saga conveys her deep familiarity with the events she depicts, and her intent to illustrate their human impact in a moving way. The scope spans most of the lives of Victor Dalmau, a Republican army medic in 1936 Spain, and Roser Bruguera, a music student taken in by Victor’s family and, later, his brother Guillem’s lover and the mother of Guillem’s child. The story follows them over nearly sixty years, beginning with the tumult of the Spanish Civil War. Guillem is killed fighting against the Fascists, news that Victor can’t bear to tell Roser initially. After surviving separate and terrible circumstances that leave them refugees in France, where authorities treat them with contempt and worse, the two marry for practical reasons in order to join Pablo Neruda’s mission transporting over 2000 Spanish exiles to Chile aboard the S.S. Winnipeg . In Santiago, the Dalmaus find many Chileans sympathetic to the Spaniards, while others make them unwelcome. With a poetic ...
Abbot Philip, who’d known Barling during their youthful studies in Paris, requests his help specifically. While Stanton’s an easygoing sort who enjoys ale, convivial gatherings, and women, Barling is a straitlaced fellow who prefers time at his writing desk. When it comes to their feelings about this mission, though, they’re in agreement: neither wants to go.
When they arrive at the monastery, which is nestled deep into a rocky valley, they discover the place in turmoil, although few openly admit it. Tension spills out from multiple avenues. The older monks chafe at Philip’s election to his current role, the lay brothers resent being treated like mindless workhorses, and many feel uncomfortable breaking their vows of silence to respond to outsiders’ questions. Then a second murder occurs, and another. Each is creatively gruesome.
This strongly plotted mystery is definitely not a cozy! The thawing relationship between Barling and Stanton, already begun after their joint success in The King’s Justice, helps lighten their increasingly heavy investigative burden. Barling sees it as his duty to impart periodic lessons that Stanton hates, but they acknowledge the other’s strengths and gifts. The final outcome, which arrives after a high body count, depends on their bond of mutual trust and is gratifying in that sense, and others.
The cast list isn’t solely male, and the presence of women in this highly regulated masculine environment creates disarray that’s first entertaining, and later dangerous. Hints at secrets about Barling’s past, which he’d rather not think about, contribute another intrigue-filled layer. Sometimes later volumes in a mystery series reveal the truth about earlier whodunits, but fortunately this isn't the case here. Readers who haven’t picked up book one, which I also recommend, won't discover any clues about how that mystery was resolved.
The Monastery Murders is published by Thomas & Mercer, Amazon's crime/thriller imprint, in September. Thanks to the author (who I'd interviewed about book one, The King's Justice) for sending me a NetGalley widget.
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