César Pérez Gellida
Editorial: Destination
Year of original publication: 2025
Antonia Monterroso does not reappear: it resurfaces, as a shadow that refuses to die. Where it ended Under dry groundNadal 2024 Award, now begins a race without return. Nothing good germinatesis that: the dirty echo of what was left without closing, a thriller of flight and persecutions, where each stop is an ambush, every ally a power traitor and every gesture of love, another form of violence.
And César Pérez Gellida I wanted to show us that the first installment was not a blow of luck, here confirms it with a narrative that no longer looks at the past, but that Drag you in your flight forward Like a lost bullet.
The widow escape
Antonia, ‘La Viuda’and his accomplice lover, Sebastián Costathey have gathered, based on violent robberies, a spotted booty of ash and death. Crossing Jaén, Córdoba, Madrid and Valladolid, his escape is a macabre waltz: from Cortijo in Cortijo, Tavern in Tabernaleaving behind corpses that speak higher than any confession.
In Under dry groundthe first installment of this story that rose with Nadal in 2024, we learned that she It is not a villain to usebut a prey dog that manipulates with lead smile. Here endorses that predatory instinct: His ambition does not know an end and his magnetism drags anyone who looks for their own salvation.
In ‘under dry ground’ we learned that the widow is not a villain to use, but a prey dog that manipulates with lead smile
In front of this human gale, Lieutenant Martín Gallardo and the Sergeant Darío Pacheco They resume hunting. Gallardo, an ex -soldier tormented by his internal demons, and Pacheco, muscle and loyalty, are the perfect antithesis of the fugitive couple: they defend justice as strict as clay stained.
His trip is a trajín of folios of Search order and bullets downloaded In the gutter, but also an intimate pulse: each step reminds them that in that Spain of the early twentieth century The powerful pull invisible threadsand the poor only have lead to balance the balance.
Rhythm of shrapnel
Jab Decomposes the novel in short and sequential chapters that jump in time: and flashback Here, a jump to present there, until you fit the pieces as a puzzle of frantic races. Each chapter final is a shot: a cliffhanger That shakes your pulse and forces you to continue, although the heart asks you truce.
when you least expect it, Gellida nails you a turn that turns your favorite character into a suspect
Prose is dry, direct, without unnecessary flourishes, but Black humor splashed that reduces the tension just when it seems that the reader is going to break. And at least you expect it, Gellida nails you a turn that converts Your favorite character in suspect “Or in victim,” of a greater hoax. “
Beyond action, the novel paints A Spain ravaged by inequality: In that landscape, the silences shout. Jaén and Córdoba show their olive groves for war and poverty; Madridits treacherous bustle where the law is bought to the highest bidder; Valladolid, its apparent calm before the last betrayal explodes. There is no rural romanticism: Here the earth is an enemy, and misery a trip without a turn.
Traps and shocks
Without revealing spoilers, let’s say Pérez Gellida displays its best game of prestidigitation in the final stretch: alliances that fracture, identities that change their side and a revelation that makes the moral of the protagonists tremble – and that of the reader. Each truth uncovered Sow doubts about all the aboveteaching us that in this world loyalty is taller than money … until it is worth betraying it.
If you are looking for a book that shakes you without contemplation and makes you return on each page, this is your next literary vice
Why Nothing good germinates It is not a simple thriller: it is a whirlwind of extreme characters, where Violence is lived in the first person And the tension is felt in the air as gunpowder. Gellida knows how to build such contradictory characters that they beat his own life, and scenarios so real that you can smell sweat and earth. The action scenes creak in the mind; the dialogues – sometimes acidic, sometimes melancholy they tear the veil of the hero and the villain to make them two faces of the same currency.
Nothing good germinates consolidates what Under dry ground He hinted: that The black novel can bleed truth and that Gellida is one of his prophets. If you are looking for a book that shakes you without contemplation, that makes you return on each page and leave your mind going around long after closing the cover, this is your next literary vice.
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