The Fifth Column

The murder of an American member of the International Brigade training in a village deep in the heart of Republican Spain has implications which soon stretch far beyond a single death. As mutual suspicions spread amongst the various groups which make up the brigade, it seems as if the unit - which is desperately needed for the the defence of Madrid - is about to disintegrate. An so it is that Paco Ruiz is once more called upon to revert to his pre-war role as homicide detective.

It is not a role that Paco relishes. He has little idea of how to deal with these people from a foreign land whose culture he does not even begin to understand. And even some of the locals seem less than willing to co-operate. Why do some of the peasants seem glad the brigadista who came to defend them is dead? Why does the Lincoln's commander insist that the murderer must have come from outside the village, when it is obvious to Paco that he did not? And how great is the danger that before the case is over Paco will lose Cindy Walker - the woman he loves - to her old college professor?

As the clock relentlessly ticks away, Paco struggles with one of the most complex cases of his career, never realising that he too, has been marked for death.

"The Fifth Column is set in San Antonio de la Jara, a small village near Albacete, where the Abraham Lincoln Brigade rests and prepares to face the fascists once again. It is a setting made to order for a VALB aficionado. To peer down those dusty streets and hang around the Lincolns while they oiled ancient rifles, talked trade unions, or made supply runs to Albacete are pleasures to savor. The novel inhabits a place and a time so clearly realized (at least for one who was never there) that the hands that grip the page begin to smell of garlic.
In The Fifth Column Inspector Paco Ruiz, a Republican soldier, is pressed into service to solve a mystery because his past as a Madrid homicide inspec-tor comes back to haunt him. The victim was a member of the Lincolns and suspicions threaten morale in a unit desperately needed to defend Madrid. Paco enlists his U.S. fiancée as translator and wrestles his Spanish sensibility around a series of interesting characters so deeply rooted in 1930's left wing politics that The Daily Worker echoes in their voices."
Book Reviews (The Volunteer, vol.XXV, No.3, Sept 2003), by Martha Olson Jarocki

The cover illustration is a watercolour by "Sim" painted in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. Reproduced by courtesy of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, New York, NY.

Order The Fifth Column (paperback) from Amazon.co.uk

Order The Fifth Column (paperback) from Amazon.com

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