Friday 29 November 2013

Torn from the news – ‘haul at sea’

Spanish Eye contains 22 cases from Leon Cazador, half-English, half-Spanish private eye.  Its release date is 29 November, from Crooked Cat Publishing.


The vast majority of these cases are based on true events…  The short story ‘Night Fishing’ was first published in magazine format in 2006: here is a very brief excerpt:

Night Fishing


“…hold back the encroaching night of unreason.”

Dusk fled quickly, as it does out here in the south of Spain. The warm night air was humid and still. The full moon’s reflection glinted from the calm Mediterranean. Behind me, crickets chirruped but I barely heard them as I was concentrating on the little fishing boat out at sea, with its nightlight casting a circle of white around the stern. From the cliff top, I watched the three of them through 10x50 binoculars, and my fears were confirmed. Old Salvador Molina needed his strong sons to haul the net in because it seemed to contain a heavy object. My heart sank.

Sometimes, the night of unreason lurks in dark recesses, waiting to cloak the good earth, and it would seem that even this honest fisherman was not immune to the importuning of this evil night.

Well, I said it was brief…

From time to time police reports echo the Cazador tales, and this is but one of them, from the Costa Blanca News of August 23, 2013:


Often, crime syndicates don’t float items but submerge them, and they’re then marked with an unobtrusive buoy. Of course this smuggling technique is used worldwide and isn’t specific to the coast of Spain. To learn how this pertains to Salvador Molina, you’ll have to read the book…
 



 

 

No comments:

Post a Comment