Translation Rights TQE / The Hands of the Pianist

A narrator of growing literary ambition, Eugenio Fuentes is the author of some titles that have little by little won him a prestigious place among the most demanding readers of crime fiction. As those who do not yet know him will discover, his weapons are as simple as they are efficient: the masterful psychological portrait, the control over the intrigue tempo, and the critical description of new and recognisable social realities. Fuentes adds a precise and brilliant form of writing, which allows us to present him as one of the renovators of the Spanish literary thriller. Is gives us great satisfaction to be able to include his name in our

catalogue.

As in so many growing cities, Breda is home to a modest construction company that wants to take advantage of the times to construct a luxury housing complex in the suburbs. Even though the business partners have differences of opinion and fear before such an ambitious operation, the delicious expected benefits push them to go through with it. One day, the corpse of one of the partners appears inside one of the newly constructed buildings. A failed pianist, dedicated to complementing his humble salary by wiping out unwanted pets and animals, seems to be behind it. The detective Ricardo Cupido delves into a passionate investigation where the alibis matter less than the dark and desolate description of the human condition.

Eugenio Fuentes was born in Montehermoso (Cáceres, Spain) in 1958. His novels have been awarded with the prizes Extremadura a la Creación and IX Alba/Prensa Canaria (this latter prize for El interior del bosque). He is the author of a collection of short stories, Vías muertas (Dead Tracks, 1997), and of a book of literary essays, La mitad de Occidente (Half of the West, 2003). Fuentes, however, finds himself among the Spanish crime fiction writers with international projection thanks to his private investigator, Ricado Cupido, the main character in his series of novels: La sangre de los ángeles (The Blood of Angels, 2001), Las manos del pianista (The Hands of the Pianist), Cuerpo a Cuerpo (One on One – Brigada 21 Prize to the best crime fiction novel written in Spanish in 2008), El interior del bosque (Inside the Forest), and Contrarreloj. Tusquets Editores has also published Venas de nieve (Veins of Snow), a brilliantly narrated story about the fight against fatality.