Black Sun Rising, Matthew Carr
Black Sun Rising, Matthew Carr
2 Rating(s)
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Black Sun Rising

Author: Matthew Carr

Narrator: Robertson Dean

Unabridged: 12 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/28/2020


Synopsis

Barcelona, summer 1909. When the scientist and explorer Randolph Foulkes is blown up in a random terrorist bomb attack, private detective Harry Lawton is hired by the man's widow to identify the beneficiary of a large payment Foulkes had made shortly before his death. Lawton's arrival in the Catalan capital coincides with a series of unusual killings that appear to have been carried out by a blood-drinking animal in the Ramblas district and adds another element of instability to a city already teetering on the brink of insurrection. Lawton soon meets and teams up with Esperanza Claramunt, a young anarchist whose lover was one of the victims of the "beast of the Ramblas," and the Catalan crime reporter Bernat Mata, who has begun investigating these crimes.

So what begins as a straightforward investigation into presumed marital infidelity turns into something far more sinister, as Lawton probes Foulkes's connections to the mysterious Explorers Club, the Barcelona political police, and an eccentric Austrian hypnotist. Adrift in a city gripped by rebellion and lawlessness, Lawton enters a labyrinth of murder, corruption, political conflict, and crazed racial pseudo-science where no one's survival is guaranteed.

About Matthew Carr

Matthew Carr is a novelist, journalist, blogger, and lifelong Hispanophile. Matt has written for various publications, including the New York Times, the Observer, and the Guardian. His nonfiction books are Fortress Europe; Soldiers, Civilians, and the American Way of War; and The Savage Frontier. His novel The Devils of Cardona was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. He blogs regularly at infernalmachine.co.uk.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kate on August 11, 2020

This had a promising concept and very well-drawn setting, but it wound up being kind of a mess and didn't quite hold together. And there were a really egregious number of anti-Semitic and racist slurs; you can make clear that even the "good" characters are "of their time" or whatever without taking......more

Goodreads review by Ray on October 06, 2021

What a disappointment! This books starts off great, with a very compelling character in the person of Harry Lawton, a deeply flawed private detective who has been hired by a rich widow to investigate her husband's murder in Spain. As a reader who enjoyed Carr's "Devils of Cardona", I was rubbing my......more

Goodreads review by Victor on January 29, 2024

Read this by accident…. The writing is immersive, it sort of reminds me of Jose Saramago’s Blindness, though now quite at that level. A very pleasant mystery, crime, thriller? Whatever the key terms are.......more

Goodreads review by James on December 26, 2020

Catalonia Caper Historical fiction. A slow start, especially if you’re not familiar with pre-Ww1 Spain, but persevere. Your patience will be rewarded if you enjoy complex plots mixed with real events. The pace picks up and the novel is nicely written.......more

Goodreads review by Connie on October 12, 2020

The Plot Thickens... Slowly but surely, the author Matthew Carr succeeds in drawing the reader deeper ever deeper, into the intrigue,human ambition and quest for glory that had been the hallmark of all great story telling. The resolution rewards the patient reader.......more