Cuerpo a cuerpo

Ricardo Cupido #5

by Eugenio Fuentes

Samuel observa cada día desde su ventana a una mujer que deja a los niños en la parada del autobús escolar. Fascinado por ella, una tarde en que él está ausente programa su cámara para hacerle varias fotos. Pero además de las imágenes de la mujer, la cámara capta un hecho inesperado: ese día y en esa esquina unos adolescentes provocan al perro de una casa vecina, éste salta la verja, muerde a uno de ellos y lo mata. Samuel prefiere ocultar esas fotos y, sobreponiéndose a su natural timidez, acaba presentándose a la mujer que ve cada mañana. Es Marina, hija de un militar, el comandante Olmedo, encargado de desmantelar el cuartel de la ciudad. Olmedo, hombre estricto y cumplidor de su deber, aparece en su domicilio con un tiro en el pecho de su propia pistola. Pero Marina no cree la versión oficial del suicidio de su padre y contrata a Ricardo Cupido, detective descreído y pacífico que, en su investigación, descubrirá lo mucho que ocultan las vidas de estos personajes y las tensas relaciones que establecen entre ellos. Desde los compañeros de cuartel, hasta el ex marido de Marina, todos tienen razones para ser sospechosos.

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Fiction, Spain, Detective

355 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 30, 2007

About the author

Eugenio Fuentes (born 1958 in Montehermoso, Cáceres), is an acclaimed Spanish novelist. Two of his novels have been translated into English, the crime novels The Depths of the Forest and The Blood of the Angels, both published by Arcadia.

Series:
* Ricardo Cupido

Reviews

[Carmen Moragues Valdés · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bueno, normalito… pero él escribe muy bien!

Mi libro 50 de 2025!!! Realmente es el 51 porque hay uno que no he metido peeeeero… achieved!!!

[Lukasz Pruski · Rating 3 out of 5]

"He was positive that, if there was a cardinal virtue in a military man, it wasn't courage, strategic intelligence, ambition or equitableness, but pride, and that all other qualities depended on it."

Since I had enjoyed Blood of the Angels , the first novel in the Cupido series by Eugenio Fuentes I was looking forward to reading his At Close Quarters (2007). In the former novel I liked the formula where the main character, private detective Ricardo Cupido, stays largely in the background and the plot focuses on everybody else. The author tries to use the same formula here but the book does not work for me quite as well. One of the reasons may be the presence of Cupido's companion and helper, Alkalino, and the cliché "detective and his sidekick" interplay between the two characters. The intriguing setup of the novel deserves a better treatment than that.

Samuel, a divorced, lonely small business owner becomes enamored of Marina, a woman whom he sees from his window every day as she drops off her child at the school-bus stop. He sets his camera to automatically take street pictures so that he can get her photos even when he is out at work. The camera captures Marina's images but also a lot more: Samuel can see the scene of a horrible accident (it reminds of the great Antonioni's movie, Blow-Up from 1966). Meanwhile, the woman's father, major Olmedo, a high-ranking officer at the local military base is about to present a report, commissioned by the government, that will recommend closing of the base for efficiency reasons. Obviously almost everybody on the base is against the closure so the major has many enemies. Also other people have serious personal grudges against Olmedo, so when he is found in his house shot dead and the police recommends the verdict of suicide, Marina cannot believe it and hires Cupido to investigate the case.

The plot - there are many additional threads - follows all characters who might have had reasons to kill Olmedo. I find only the base-closing thread interesting. Mr. Fuentes's observations of the paradigm change in the Spanish army, from the old, personnel-based force to the new model founded on information and technology, are fascinating. There is a moving scene of the last pledge of allegiance to be executed at the San Marcial base. Alas, other threads are not on the same level. Schopenhauer-reading Alkalino is a paper-thin character and formulaic threads that involve Bramante, Ucha, and Beltrán threads lack depth.

Cupido's method of "firmly yet gently asking questions" is supposedly very effective yet the author has not been able to explain why it is so and everybody seems just to be saying how good Cupido is in the art of detection. By rearranging the accounts of events the author artificially structures the plot to enhance the mystery-solving aspect. Also, when several characters face moral dilemmas and the plot forces them to make choices the author is not quite successful in avoiding naiveté.

Yet overall, marginal "thumbs up" from this reviewer. Superficial psychology is balanced by the outstanding military policy thread and the silliness of the Alkalino thread fails to overshadow the great premise of the novel.

Three stars.

[Rafa Aguirre Ezquerra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una vez más el autor crea una historia coral, donde múltiples personajes tejen una trama en la que Ricardo Cupido es poco más que el narrador, por mucho que su insistencia profesional sea la que acabe por resolver el misterio... y de paso aproveche para dar su opinión sobre el Ejército, su pasado, presente y futuro.

Chirría un poco el escenario y qué hace en él tanto el detective como su amigo Alkalino. Y, como es habitual, hay un exceso de páginas sobre plantas, cuidados y bichos.

[Victor Manuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Como siempre las novelas negras de este autor no fallan tanto en trama como en detalles que te llevan a el mundo "real" y gris que detalla.

Pero también he de decir que esta es de las novelas de Eugenio que menos me ha logrado a enganchar. Generándome parones en la lectura. Aunque estos pueden llegar a ser por causas personales el echo de que la ciudad no exista ni en nombre (vamos no tiene nombre el lugar donde transcurre la novela salvo ser una ciudad con mar) me saca la verdad..

[Peter Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this immensely! The writing is good and the representation of each character convincing. The plot was full of surprises and the ending satisfying. I appreciated the reflections on life offered by the imaginations of each character.

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good example of modern crime fiction set in Spain - although the setting is not too obvious here; it could quite easily have been another Mediterranean country where the events took place.

A high-ranking army officer has died in what seems to the local police to be a clear case of suicide, but the man's daughter is not convinced and asks a private detective - Ricardo Cupido - to investigate. Cupido is an interesting character, who takes an approach to investigation which is both thorough but also very "laid back". The reader is left guessing for much of the book as to what may have happened to bring about the army officer's death. A good "whodunit" approach!

The writing is literary, perhaps some would say "old-fashioned", in style, but the intrigue of the story keeps the reader involved. All in all, I have enjoyed this book enough to seek out others by Eugenio Fuentes.

[Ann Tonks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this was my first book by Eugenio Fuentes and I felt that I didn't know enought about his private detective Ricardo Cupido, I enjoy the different points of view of the protagonists as well as the insights into contempoirary Spain.

[Cilla ley · Rating 4 out of 5]

aT LEAST THERE WAS NO KILLING OF ANIMALS. a GOOD READ BUT NOT TOTALLY CONVINCED.