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The Summer Of Dead Toys (2011)

by Antonio Hill(Favorite Author)

3.6 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0385678703 (ISBN13: 9780385678704)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Doubleday Canada

series

Inspector Héctor Salgado

review 1: Antonio Hill looks like he's got the opening of a darn good new detective series started in "The Summer Of Dead Toys." It's got everything a compelling series should have: a vivid and interesting setting in the city of Barcelona (depicted here in stifling summer heat), an interesting main character in Hector Salgado (a disgraced but sensitive detective whose wife left him for another woman), equally vividly portrayed supporting characters (a grandmotherly landlord, a tough but supportive female sergeant with a demanding home life, a younger rookie female detective - inexperienced but with good instincts whose personal life is in turmoil, and a boss with his own agenda but who is politically astute and will back his team). The opening case concerns a young man from a weal... morethy family who falls/is pushed/or commits suicide from a third story window. It's perceived as an accident at first - a result of the fireworks-filled night of San Juan. As the case unfolds, however, it looks like it may be connected to another incident from fifteen years earlier and a swimming pool containing dismembered dolls and the body of a young girl. While Salgado tries to get to the bottom of his new case, the previous case which caused his disgrace is threatening to engulf him once again, as one Doctor Omar, an African ju-ju man connected to a forced prostitution ring has vanished and Salgado is, himself, suspected. A great opening to what looks like a compelling series. - BH.
review 2: This was an interesting read, largely because it is not written by an American writer. Barcelona native Antonio Hill both wrote and translated his novel about a cop trying to recover from a loss of control in a previous case, who gets mixed up in what looks on the surface like a straightforward accident/suicide of an upper class college student. Of course, things are not as they appear, and he continues to deal with fallout from the old case while realizing that this new one will not be so easy after all. The characters are pretty stock, but I still liked reading about them. I'm not sure the reader could uncover the solution to the mystery until the very end. At least I couldn't, but that is not a deal-breaker for me in reading a mystery. less

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