María Oruña (Vigo, 1976) always has her eyes wide open because she knows that any place she visits can become the setting for future novels. It happened to him in Puente Viesgo, during a visit to the town's water temple. “At first it seemed like so many other places. And then my friend Iñaki asked me if he wanted to see the old spa, which is in those same facilities. I remember going down some stairs that invited me to take a trip back in time, walking through some hallways like they were from the 19th century and saying 'now, a crime will be committed here,'" explains the author, who today publishes Los Innocents, the sixth volume of the saga 'The books of Puerto Escondido'.
Months after that “spark”, the Cantabrian crime lady repeats the same steps, although this time accompanied by a group of journalists who have visited this place in the Valles Pasiegos region through which the Pas River runs. and where one of the most important groups of prehistoric caves is located. “The impression is the same,” she acknowledges as she observes a font that “from the moment I saw it for the first time I was drawn to it and knew I was going to write about it. There are things that work based on gut feelings and then you channel them."
The pump takes on relevance in the novel, because a group of businessmen approach these facilities and will be victims of a massacre perpetrated with a dangerous chemical weapon. “I was clear about the place and that it would be something massive. I looked through newspaper archives and read a lot about sarin gas. "I was amazed to see that it wasn't something that difficult to achieve."
Recreating a multiple massacre on paper was the literary challenge of this installment, which takes place two weeks before Lieutenant Valentina Redondo—its protagonist par excellence—marries Professor Oliver Gordon. “Each book in the series pays homage to a different type of detective novel.” In the past he experimented with domestic noir, scientific thrillers or the classic locked room mysteries made so popular by Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. “Now I wanted to bring evil to that pure place because within beauty and peace there is also room for death.”
The purity is partly provided by the idyllic environment, surrounded by nature. It is not strange to see water blackbirds prowling around there. Oruña begins his story with this bird, which “only exists in places where the water is crystal clear. An immaculate place where things can also happen,” says the writer.
Iñaki Bedia, public relations of the Gran Hotel Balneario de Puente Viesgo and who discovered this place to the author, acknowledges that yes, that indeed “things happen” there, but “for now not a crime, beyond the literary. The Spanish soccer team of '94 gathered here for twenty days and personalities such as the Marquis of Comillas, Menéndez Pelayo and Benito Pérez Galdós, who described Puente Viesgo as paradise, have also passed by.
Oruña transforms this tranquility into the most police and action plot he has created so far. “These lines have been written with cool music like I wanna be your slave”, by Måneskin. All this energy “may be due to the fact that I drink a bottle of bee pollen every time I write a book. I have the memory of a fish but with this I even remember my dreams.” Will you use it again in future stories? “Yes, but for the moment they will not have Valentina as the protagonist. That doesn't mean that there won't be more books by her in the future, but if there are, the game will be different," he concludes.
