Almost three years after his last publication, the Barcelona writer Eduardo Mendoza will return to bookstores on January 24 with a new work, titled Three enigmas for the Organization.
This novel, number twenty in the Mendoza bibliography, which also includes theatrical, travel and non-fiction titles, proposes a plot of intrigue and suspense, set in Barcelona in the spring of 2022.
Once the trilogy The Three Laws of Motion is closed – The King Receives (2018), The Negotiation of Yin and Yang (2019) and Transshipment in Moscow (2021), its three most recent titles to date, starring Rufo Batalla, a detective, let's say, accidental, although also daring -, Mendoza returns in his new work to the parody of the detective genre. And he does it in a big way, judging by some of the mottos that the Seix Barral publishing house is considering for this new book: “[Mendoza] does not return with one crazy detective, but with nine. He does not return with one case, but with three.”
The “crazy detective” refers to Ceferino, the homeless man with Cervantes language who has starred in five of the author's novels, starting with The Mystery of the Haunted Crypt (1979), continuing with The Labyrinth of the Olives (1982), The Adventure of the ladies' boudoir (2001) and El enredo de la bol (2012), and ending with The secret of the lost model (2015).
The “nine detectives” and the “three cases” refer to a plot in which the large cast of investigators, part of a secret government organization created under Franco, and which has survived “lost in the limbo of institutional bureaucracy of the democratic system”, faces the investigation of a triple case, in which the discovery of a body in a hotel on Las Ramblas, the disappearance of a potentate of British nationality and the peculiar finances of a canning firm coincide.
The usual ingredients in Mendoza's narrative – brilliant and multifaceted literary expression, sense of humor, social satire and comedy – are also present in Three Enigmas for the Organization, a puzzle whose pieces end up fitting together to round out what Seix Barral sees. presented as “the best and funniest adventure” written by the Barcelona author.
In April 2021, following the appearance of Transbordo in Moscow, Mendoza gave an interview to La Vanguardia that was published under the headline “I don't want to work anymore, I'm tired of writing novels,” which implied a possible literary withdrawal.
However, this new title on the way tells us that the winner of the Cervantes Prize in 2016 is still active and, now 80 years old, will return in January to meet the reader with a new police plot.
Although in Mendoza's most ambitious and longest-winded novels – The Truth About the Savolta Case (1975), The City of Wonders (1986) or A Light Comedy (1996) – the social frieze and the evocation of a historical period certain have a central position, the parody of the police genre has been a constant desire of Mendoza throughout his entire career. Starting with the already mentioned novels that have Ceferino as the main character, and that the author began to write as a form of entertainment, when he was stuck in writing other works.. Following by those of Rufo Batalla. And now adding these Three enigmas for the Organization to the list.
