BLUE ROSES FOR A DEAD...LADY?

by Maria-Antònia Oliver

Edited and translated by Kathleen McNerney

In this new, excellent detective novel, Lònia Guiu, the detective/protagonist of Study in Lilac and Antipodes, again cracks the case, this time of a woman's missing daughter, but not without the usual contretemps, tension, and riddles, as well as good humor.  A desperate mother searches for her daughter, Júlia.  Lònia,  takes on the job of looking for her in Mallorca, her last known whereabouts.  No one there knows anything.  But Lònia suspects that her informers are lying.  A Castilian song with its deformed version in Catalan provides a clue, and little by little she unravels the skeins, but she pays a price:  a destroyed car, a sprained ankle, a finger in a cast, a couple of beatings... Lots of action and lots of emotion. No doubt about it, it is a novel by Oliver. In Blue Roses Lònia has reached the level of the best current detectives, like Sue Grafton's, for example. She is now prepared to take on such strange and difficult situations:  mixtures of magic and sex, hatred and tenderness, fantasy and action.  Maria-Antònia Oliver has done a good job of consolidating the character of the protagonist.  Blue Roses is a solid literary product which will please both Lònia Guiu fans and those who enjoy a high quality work of detective fiction

The Author