*A Crack in the Wall, by Claudia Piñeiro

9781980524089
Bitter Lemon Press, 2013
originally published as Las grietas de Jara, 2009
translated by Miranda France
 218 pp

paperback



I absolutely love Claudia Piñeiro's writing and this time she's outdone herself. A Crack in the Wall is absolutely superb.  The only bad thing about Piñeiro's books is that there aren't more coming out in rapid succession.   Let me just say up front that I picked this up because I've read Piñeiro's other books which have been labeled as "crime fiction," but this isn't simply a novel of crime fiction per se.  The crime that does occur has a great deal to do with the rest of the story, which, metaphorically,  is a story about a man whose personal and moral ground undergoes a seismic shift, leading him to decide to  "rediscover something that, until recently, he didn’t even realize he had lost."   You can read more at the crime page, but before you do that, let me just say that frankly, the book is amazing.   Highly recommended, and you don't have to be a regular reader of crime fiction to enjoy this novel.