The writer Julio César Cano grants me an interview (1965, chapels, Barcelona), who has just published a new installment of the series of novels starring Inspector Monfort. In this case, dead flowers (Maeva). Cano began writing after working for years as a musician and group manager.. It is known, above all, for his series of the emblematic Inspector Monfort, set in Castellón, where the author currently lives with his family. dead flowers It is the fourth case, which follows Murder in the Plaza de la Farola, Tomorrow, if God and the devil want y I wish you were here. GINÉS J. VERA
On the cover of dead flowers We see the façade of the Castellón Post Office building. I would like to know if you have chosen it (or they have chosen it for you.) Beyond the fact that there is an interesting scene in which contemplating this facade, Monfort explains the origin of the expression “stay in your thirteen”.
We decided by mutual agreement that the cover would be the Castellón Post Office building due to things that happen in the novel. It's not just a picture, It's not just because the scene I mentioned in the question occurs.. The Post Office building, in this book, It's much more than that, He is almost another character in the novel, the silent witness of almost everything that happens in it. I cannot explain much more without revealing part of the events but I am clear that after reading Dead Flowers, readers who pass by this building (exportable to all central post offices in the country), They will believe they see one of the characters mentioned in the novel appear..
The expression, by the way, It also has a relationship with a Pope and the Castellón municipality of Peñíscola..
Regarding this small note about Peñíscola, I will say that it is also a notable place in the novel, but I cannot reveal more without betraying those who have not yet read it..
Several subplots are combined in counterpoint, spaced in time, that converge. The one that opens us in the years 80 It's quite shocking and disturbing.. I was wondering about your opinion that in addition to the real violence that assaults us in the media, black fiction authors add a little more, Won't so much exposure to evil end up affecting us as readers??
The plot that takes place in the eighties is truly shocking. it is, besides, written in first person, which was hard work putting myself in the shoes of someone of such ilk, but I will also tell you that I feel very proud of this part of the novel. I think it's one of the best things in the book.. The events brought about by this character are surprising as well as very hard., but life, unfortunately, It is full of cases that far surpass fiction. The adolescent protagonist of this subplot is no different from other people who have committed similar crimes in reality., such as the katana killer, to name one. Exposure to evil has always existed in literature. Readers are smart, I don't think it affects them more or less that we write about it., At the end of the day, whenever we write about these topics, we receive news of a real case that greatly exceeds those that we crime novel writers capture on paper..
We also find a character who will not have had a hard time profiling either.. I mean Gustavo Seguí, a novel writer, whom we see signing copies at the Castellón Book Fair, and that has gained more followers thanks to a literary award from the Valencian Community. Pure coincidence between him and you?? As a writer, what is more difficult to make the reader see if the character is also another writer??
If you allow me, I will contradict you in this regard.. Yes, it has been difficult for me to profile the character of Gustavo Seguí; He is an award-winning writer for his first and only novel, but it is a cursed book for him. Gustavo Seguí is a tormented person long before writing the book, He is a character ravaged by drugs., a sick, a soul in pain that goes through life waiting for its end to come or the end of those it fears.
There is no coincidence between him and me, Nothing is further from literature than the events that lead Seguí to write his book. Writing about writers is funny. I hadn't done it until now either., but I repeat, Gustavo Seguí is little of a writer in this novel, although I prefer that the readers be the ones to discover their true reasons.
A literary character has recently returned to bookstores, a patriotic detective, that seemed to die with its creator, that great Catalan writer with a last name that rhymes with this name. Far from making easy jokes with the undead, vampires, Dracula, Beautiful Lugosi (and his relationship with Dead Flowers), would emphasize the 'natural' evolution of the characters around Monfort. This includes death and severe illness.: the dementia of Ignacio Monfort. Isn't this, after all, another trait of verisimilitude associated with the crime novel (social) contemporary?
The everyday life, sometimes undervalued in literature, It is a very important part that I try to take care of with true dedication. I wrote the first Inspector Monfort novel (Murder in the streetlight square) In the year 2009 and it was published a year later in a publishing house in San Sebastián. In the year 2015 Ediciones Maeva took over the publishing rights of that first novel and published it along with the second. (Tomorrow, if God and the devil want). In it 2017 appeared I wish you were here and now in 2019 dead flowers. The main characters remain the same (Monfort, Silvia Redó, Commissioner Romerale, etc.), each novel can be read separately, with the intention that readers do not have to read the books starting with the first, but the characters have life, They are real now, they live, suffer, aman, they cry, they eat, they drink and, above all, they grow old, for better and for worse. They are a great family that lives in my head and in that of the readers.. For them to be as true as I feel they are, they must get sick., heal, know love and also feel disappointed sometimes, betrayed, ignored. They must stumble, fall and get back up. sometimes I love them, others quite the opposite. They are alive and walking forward in search of the fifth adventure of Inspector Monfort. At the moment, I hope you enjoy that natural evolution with Dead Flowers.
