The lawyer Javier Melero put aside his toga a few years ago to dedicate much of his time to literary and intellectual activity. Classes at the university, articles in La Vanguardia, podcasts and radio gatherings take up most of his time without neglecting some judicial matters that he still manages. He is now publishing his new book, his third in four years, in which he delves into the murder of a man at the hands of hitmen, who were hired by a high-ranking Barcelona businessman.
In Fragile Virtue (Ariel), the author reviews with virtuous prose and a biting style a real case that he took on years ago and which he always suspected would end up captured in the pages of a book. “I had two cases in a row, this one and that one, and both were contract killings. They were rich people and they both hired henchmen to commit a murder. And the same thing happened to both of them. While these people are talking in a three-star restaurant, everything is going smoothly, but when they go down and come into contact with the criminal world, things go wrong,” highlights the author.
A businessman came to him for help because he was scared. Some men had ended the life of one of his collaborators in front of him and were blackmailing him to cover the victim's debts or else he would end up suffering the same fate. He spent six months like this. Paying and in silence. Suffering inside. Until he put himself in the hands of Melero or, in this case, a lawyer who is very similar to him and who retains the same reticence and acid humor as the author.
“He is a character who is beginning to become independent of me. He has my things but he is taking on a life of his own. As I plan to continue, I see the potential for this guy to continue and little by little he will disassociate himself from me. "He already has his own nerves," he says ironically. The protagonist is not a reviled antihero fed up with society with alcoholism problems, as is usual in Swedish crime novels, nor a female investigator with major arrests, as is styled in current Spanish noir, but Melero's character is that of a lawyer. successful Barcelonan, who gets what he wants but who looks around him with a certain skepticism that allows him to analyze the environment around him with a critical and devastating spirit.
The influence of Vázquez Montalbán is noticeable in the traditional portrait of Barcelona that Melero draws and other influences are also perceived, such as American Psycho, the success of Bret Easton Bellis, which pushes the protagonist to scrutinize in detail the clothing of the other characters and to gut those poorly combined. “My character is more bothered by aesthetic problems than moral doubts,” he jokes.
The author takes advantage of his powerful narrative voice to leave no stone unturned, warning of the city's dangerous drift to the point of offering a stinging criticism of the well-to-do classes who look down on everyone, but who in the end kill themselves just as they do. petty criminals. “They are people whom everyone considers virtuous, as pillars of society. They are from the Barça box, the Círculo del Liceu, the Palau de la Música and all the rest, and in reality when you scratch a little there is the same beast that you can find anywhere,” he describes.
This is the fragility of the characters that Melero alludes to in the title of the book. “The narrator makes a moral judgment that is much harsher on these people than on criminals of lower means. These people have opportunities and all kinds of means to not have to resort to these things. In that the narrator is a bit moralistic.
The story takes place in a Barcelona far from the people of Barcelona with fewer and fewer authentic places in which to feel at home, although the protagonist manages to reveal some of those that still survive, such as the Barcelona billiards, just below the Rambla Catalunya, or the restaurant Gorría where, as the narrator warns, you will never find “spherical food.”
“I am a patriot of Eixample and it is likely that I will never move from here again but my vision of the city is becoming increasingly acidic. It is becoming a shell. It is a city that sells itself. The Boqueria market is sold, the Rambla is sold, everything is sold and in the end there will be nothing left,” reflects Melero.
The author acknowledges that he had a good time writing the book after more transcendental works such as El encargo, which narrated the details of the procés trial in the Supreme Court, and Cambalache, both from the Ariel publishing house, which recounted the life of the last forty years in Catalonia of former president Jordi Pujol, who was his client. Melero clarifies that this is not the third work but the fourth of his career. “Before, I had published a Criminal Procedure Manual that no one read,” he jokes.
