A country that doesn't acknowledge its past is destined to repeat its mistakes.

Why murder a sick old man nearing retirement? An investigation into the death of a professor at the University of Barcelona seems particularly baffling for Deputy Inspector Norma Forester of the Catalan police, as word from the top confirms she's the one to lead this case.

The granddaughter of an English member of the International Brigades, Norma has a colourful family life, with a forensic doctor husband, a hippy mother, a squatter daughter and an aunt, a nun in an enclosed order, who operates as a hacker from her austere convent cell.

This blended family sometimes helps and often hinders Norma's investigations.

It seems the spectres of the past have not yet been laid to rest, and there are people who can neither forgive nor forget the cruelties of the Spanish Civil War and all that followed.

Teresa Solana is a multi-award-winning Catalan crime writer and literary translator, renowned for her funny, distinctive writing. Her first crime series featuring the unidentical Masdéu twins has been translated into several languages (including English, published by Bitter Lemon Press), and her short story collection The First Prehistoric Serial Killer was longlisted for the CWA Short Story Dagger Award in 2019.