Mysteries to Die For Book Club: "The Invisible Guardian" by Dolores Redondo
About this Event
The Mysteries to Die For Book Club is led by Elsie Souza, reading M**der, mayhem, and marvelous prose. From Nordic noir to British whodunits, each book reveals how crime and storytelling cross borders, and what our favorite detectives can teach us about culture, justice, and the human heart.
This month, we're reading Dolores Redondo's The Invisible Guardian—an atmospheric psychological thriller that blends a serial-killer investigation with the myths and superstitions of Spain's Basque Country. When the body of a teenage girl is discovered along the banks of the River Baztán, homicide inspector Amaia Salazar is sent back to Elizondo, the hometown she has spent years trying to escape. As the case begins to resemble another recent M**der, rumors spread that the deaths may be connected to the basajaun, a mysterious guardian creature from Basque mythology. Amaia must navigate the uneasy boundary between folklore and fact while confronting secrets from her own childhood that refuse to stay buried. Moody, immersive, and rich with a powerful sense of place, The Invisible Guardian is the first book in Redondo's acclaimed Baztán Trilogy and a mystery in which the landscape—and the stories people tell about it—are as important as the clues.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Already a #1 international bestseller, this taut, gripping psychological thriller follows a police inspector who reluctantly returns to her hometown in Spain’s Basque Country—a place shrouded in mythology and superstition—to solve a series of eerie murders.
When the body of a teenaged girl is found on a riverbank in a remote area, the crime appears all too similar to a M**der committed only months prior, igniting the worst fears of the small community of Elizondo. Homicide inspector Amaia Salazar, a strong, borderline-obsessive investigator, is assigned to the case. After all, this beautiful, peculiar backwater steeped in the blood of the Spanish Inquisition, where pagan beliefs still flourish under a thin veneer of modernity, is a space she knows better than anyone. Forced to return to Elizondo, a town she has always sought to escape, Amaia is tasked with finding a serial killer on the loose.
As the murders in the area grow increasingly violent, the locals come to believe only one creature could possibly be responsible: a creature of Basque mythology known as the basajaun, or Invisible Guardian. But Amaia is logical—a professional—and she refuses to let local superstitions distract her from her careful detective work. As the investigation deepens, a troubling secret from Amaia’s past plagues her with nightmares and soon her findings seem to transform myth into reality. Everything she believes to be rational and verifiable is called into question. Now Amaia must fight her demons and determine if these murders are the work of a ritualistic killer or something even darker.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Dolores Redondo was born in Donostia-San Sebastián in 1969. She studied law and gastronomy, but began writing short stories and in 2009 she published her first novel, The Privileges of the Angel. The Invisible Guardian was published in Spain in 2013 and is being translated into thirty languages. She currently lives and writes in the Ribera Navarra.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 22.41
