Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Water-Blue Eyes by Domingo Villar

 
Domingo Villar was a Spanish author of crime fiction. He died earlier this year. See the In Memoriam post by Jose Ignacio Escribano García-Bosque with summaries of his detective fiction and a list of the awards he received here: https://jiescribano.wordpress.com/2022/05/19/domingo-villar-in-memoriam/

Villar grew up in Galicia, a province on the northwest coast of Spain, and he set his three mysteries with Detective Inspector Leo Caldas there. The English language edition of the first one was translated by Martin Schifino. Water-Blue Eyes (Arcadia Books, 2009) opens with a bored Caldas fielding citizen calls on the local radio station. None of the calls were about matters he could address and the best he could do was tell the concerned citizen that he would forward the information to the correct department.

He returned to the police station to be greeted by the recent addition to the police force Rafael Estevez and the news that they were to go to an address in an upscale area right away. There they found the forensics team busy with the scene of a brutal and blood-curdling murder. The victim was the saxophone player in a band at jazz clubs, an attractive and popular young man about town. The murder weapon was unusual; of all the crime fiction I have read, this method of dispatching a human may be the most horrible one I have seen. Caldas divided his time between trying to trace it and searching for the motive in the nightclubs where the victim spent his time.

Excellent plotting here, with well-considered misdirection and multiple suspects. The motive, too, was concealed until nearly the end. Caldas is a good addition to the ranks of fictional police detectives: intelligent, persistent, and thorough with enough flaws to make him likable. The scene with his father shows him to be a warm loving son.

Estevez is an original sidekick. A transplant to Galicia, he cannot reconcile himself to the vague and inexact communication style of the locals. Estevez is plain spoken and doesn’t understand the nuances of the region. His routine outbursts of temper over this lack of precision has Caldas’s supervisor ready to send Estevez back to his hometown.

The best part of the book is the lyrical descriptions of Galicia. The translator did a wonderful job conveying the beauty of the coast and beaches. An unusual location and a very good mystery. Recommended.

·         Publisher: ‎ Arcadia Books Ltd; Reprint edition (April 30, 2009)

·         Language: ‎ English

·         Paperback: ‎ 168 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎ 1906413258

·         ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1906413255

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2022

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.