Summer Book Series: Offside

One of the reasons why the blog has taken a break for the past few days is that I have been catching up some Summer reading. By choice I read very little in the way of footie books. Most are about hooligans or they're memoirs and if you've read one, you've read them all. That said I like some formulaic reading myself. I read crime fiction. I had been reading these novels about an Italian detective set in Sicily and I was referred by a friend to these similar novels set in Barcelona written by Manuel Vasquez Montalban.

They're set in a particular place in time, the pre-Olympic Barcelona of 1992, and the main character Pepe Carvaho is a very interesting creation. He's a private detective in the Philip Marlowe mold, rough around the edges at first glance, but their are layers upon layers. A gourmand, ex-intelligence officer for the CIA, anarchist, and very much an outsider as the story begins.

Carvalho is hired by a representative from FC Barcelona to investigate a death-threat on their newly signed center-forward. The names have been changes and rearranged to suit the anonymity of the players but it is genuinely written from the point of view of someone who knows the game and the club. I'm disappointed in the translation, transcribed by someone who doesn't know the city, the culture, nor the game well, but I'll read the rest of the series in the original prose. Despite some gaffes in spelling or grammar, the author's voice does come through. It's not much of a mystery and not really a crime novel with loads of action, but if you like your novels with plenty of local color, flavor and philosophy, this books is right for you.