Luz poniente - Juan Ramón Biedma

Looking to explore some more Spanish language fiction, particularly in the field of crime fiction and thrillers, I'm afraid I didn't get on well with Juan Ramón Biedma's Luz poniente and left it unfinished. In my defense, I'm going pretty much blind into the world of Spanish crime fiction, trying out some names and recommendations that I have picked up. I think it might be better in future to work on sample downloads to get an idea or what is and what is not worthwhile. Although, when you are reading in Spanish, you are at least sharpening up you language skills, so it's never totally wasted time.

It often felt like it however reading Luz poniente (The Setting Light), and it feels almost as much as a chore trying to summarise it. I will be rolling my eyes throughout as I write this. I haven't read The Da Vinci Code, although I did see the movie of the Dan Brown second book Angels & Demons and thought it was entertaining hokum. You could maybe look at Luz poniente the same way...

A young priest Álvaro Tertulli has travelled from Rome to Seville using instructions left by his uncle Cardinal Hesperio Tertulli to reunite the five parts of the Manuscript of God, a book of secret ancient wisdom, codes and knowledge gathered by the Cardinal while exploring some documents coming from the same source as Dead Sea Scrolls. The manuscript is potentially dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands, that being a secret sect within the church that never accepted the closure of the Inquisition, who are continuing to carrying out operations, inquisitions and torture apparently without anyone knowing, from an underground base beneath a bus station in Seville. (As Monty Python observed "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition").

The manuscript has been divided up by the Cardinal and entrusted to Five Custodians, five priests who have been holding them for the last 50 years. They are all based in Seville, which seems making finding them a little too easy, but for some reason they have to be moved together to a new depository at the start of a new millennium and it all has to be done in the last seven days of the year. Álvaro has a list, but it looks like the Inquisition also have the same list and, using an army of beggars, they are also trying to collect the five separate cases containing the manuscript. And they aren't asking for them nicely.

Their methods have resulted in the recent deaths of a priest, 22 student priests in the Massacre of San Ignacio and further acts of horror enacted against various religions orders and groups, even choir boys, so the methods of the secret society aren't exactly discreet. Álvaro wouldn't have lasted long either only he was fortunate enough to ask a carpark attendant called Riven to help him carry his bags to his rooms, which proves particularly fortunate since Riven manages to disarm an ambush of four ruthless down-and-out killers with deadly knives waiting for the young priest.

I think even sticking around long enough to read 44% of Luz poniente is fairly generous. It's clear that it's going to be repetitive, tracking down five priests, the killers either getting there before them and leaving a gory mess behind them, or running into Álvaro and Riven for further deadly encounters and fights. There are all sorts of unsavoury characters they meet along the way, the crude dialogue littered with profanity, and there is no scene that the author can't ensuciar with sexual perversion or a generous helping of mindless bloodletting. More than ludicrous, it's just horrible stuff, with scarcely an ounce of credible characterisation and an improbable conspiracy plot.

Reading notes: Luz poniente by Juan Ramón Biedma, published in 2019 by Fondo de Cultura Económica. It's available in paperback or in eBook/Kindle.