El Alquimista Impaciente

A nuclear-plant engineer is found dead, tied to a bed in a roadside motel outside Guadalajara, with no visible trace of violence. Sergeant Rubén Bevilacqua and his young partner, Guard Virginia Chamorro, of Spain's Guardia Civil are sent to work out whether it was murder or an accident — and, starting from almost nothing, uncover a quiet chain of corruption among the region's businessmen and the dead man's own carefully hidden double life.

Lorenzo Silva's second novel to feature the pair leans less on chase and gunfire than on patience — the alchemy the title refers to — reading as a close study of how the Guardia Civil actually works and of the people inside it, particularly the wary, observant Chamorro. It won Spain's Premio Nadal in 2000, one of the country's oldest and most prestigious literary prizes, and was adapted into a 2002 film of the same name directed by Patricia Ferreira.