Con anuncio - Rosa Ribas

In a way that now seems typical of Rosa Ribas's Commissioner Cornelia Weber series, even after just reading the first book Entre dos aguas, the second book in the series Con anuncio (which translates something like 'As Announced') opens with what you might call a low-key explosive situation. A package has been delivered to a publicity agency in Frankfurt that explodes on opening. The device only showers confetti over the terrified receptionist, but there is a message inside that warns that the next one will be real.

The Baumgard & Holder agency is in competition for a contract to run a major campaign for the city of Frankfurt, one that promotes cultural, ideological and religious tolerance in a multicultural society. The city suffers a reputation of being one of the most dangerous in Germany and that image won't be improved by the threats made against an agency hoping to promote a campaign of tolerance. It's not the only threat that has been made. Several anonymous letters have been sent and the cars of the employees working on the campaign have been defaced and damaged. Nonetheless, in the same low-key fashion, the agency has been carrying on with their work, ignoring the threats up until the package 'bomb', even though the targeting seems to suggest someone with knowledge of the inner workings of the agency and the private lives of the personnel.

Still, no one has been killed - not yet anyway - so it doesn't seem like an issue that is of concern to Cornelia Weber-Tejedor, a commissioner in the Frankfurt police homicide division, but again - as with another side case previously in Entre dos aguas - she has been asked to investigate as a favour to her boss. Perhaps he knows something she doesn't, but more likely it's because of her German/Spanish heritage that places her in a position to consider threats apparently made against the idea of multiculturalism and tolerance. Weber takes up an office in the agency while the investigation continues, but the anonymous letters still seem to arrive. It may be a low-key opening, but Con anuncio does have several elements that have the potential to develop into something more serious, which of course they do when one of the personnel in the agency is murdered on her watch. 

The nature of the crime and the murders that Comisaria Weber has to deal with, all seem to fit within the USP of the series and its focus on the conflicts and dangerous undercurrents in traditional and conservative German society towards foreigners and outsiders in general. Another case that runs parallel to the Baumgard & Holder case is that of a missing illegal immigrant from Moldova working as a prostitute, Ilinca Constantinescu. An anonymous phone call has been made saying that she had been killed, but although her heavily bloodstained clothes have been found, there is as yet no body. This seems to be intentional, using the police investigation a way of getting a warning message out.

The kind of things you expect to find in a police detective novel are there in Con anuncio, but not the way you usually expect them, and this is something that gives the series a distinct character. Cornelia's personal and family life has its problems and this tends to have an impact on how she views the world, and it's not even from a perspective of her half-German, half-Spanish parentage. Likewise her conflicts with colleagues and bosses, teaming her up on this case with mortal enemy Juncker, also takes unexpected turns that force her to question assumptions. People have more than one side to their personality is a common discovery, which is of course something we all know but don't often choose to accept.

As a consequence the series might seem to lack the kind of dynamic you might expect in a police detective crime series, but again that proves to be something in its favour. It's definitely not cosy-crime however. Ribas finds many other little personal connections and observations in the daily experience and work of Weber (not to mention pop cultural references that relate to a certain age group) that are amusing and informative, that come together in uncommon, unexpected and sometimes violent ways. Although the Ilinca Constantinescu case largely takes a backseat and feels like an unnecessary add-on that really has little to do with the main case, there is nonetheless a consistent theme being developed in the series as a whole that looks like it has plenty of interesting - and increasingly dangerous - places to run.

Con anuncio by Rosa Ribas (Rosa Ribas Moliné), is the second book in the series based on the half-Spanish half-German police commissioner, Cornelia Weber-Tejedor. Con anuncio was originally published in 2009. I read this as part of a Kindle edition published by Debolsillo that collects the first three books - Entre dos aguas, Con anuncio and En caída libre. Coming late to the series means at least it's nice to know that there are more books published to catch up with.