diumenge, 29 de gener del 2012

La llamada de un extraño (A Stranger Calls) wins the 2012 LH Confidencial Award for Crime Novels


La llamada de un extraño (A Stranger Calls), by Rafael Alcalde, is the winner of the 2012 LH Confidencial Award. The Jury underscored the increasing rythm of the text and the fact that in this novel the author pays special attention to the lack of intimacy in a society in which new technologies play a double role as enhancers of communication but also as a tool to control our movements.

A thriller with common characters, just like most of us. And a polite, attentive and misanthropic villain. A crime novel which is formally daring: only dialogue, literally. Neither a description nor a narrator. The players trapped in the game that is about to unveil, all of them, will find themselves shelterless. If you decide to be in, beware.

The call of a stranger may surprise you. If he seems to know you better than you do, you can get restless. If that stranger calls you and your kin and friends, you can get bewildered. If you cannot avoid his calls, you’ll feel hopeless. But if the stranger is willing to reward you, you can also get hooked to the game. When he decides to punish you, it might be too late to rectify, if that was ever an option.

Again, beware. And just pray you do not get a call from a stranger...

Born in Barcelona in 1961, Rafael Alcalde is a teacher at a High School and the author of two previous and awarded novels.