One of the finest examples of European noir literature.-John HarveyMontalbán writes with authority and compassion-a Le Carré-like sorrow.-Publishers WeeklyPepe Carvalho, ex-cop, ex-Marxist, and constant gourmet, is working as a private detective in Barcelona when a body is pulled out of the sea, its face so badly destroyed that the only way of indentifying it is through a tattoo that says Born to raise hell in hell. Manuel Vázquez Montalbán was born in Barcelona in 1939. He won both the Raymond Chandler Prize and the French Grand Prix of Detective Fiction for his thrillers. He died in 2003.