La mujer fugitiva

La mujer fugitiva is the thirteenth case for Inspector Petra Delicado, marking her return to Barcelona's streets after several years away in Alicia Giménez Bartlett's long-running police-procedural series. When the owner of a mobile food truck is found stabbed inside his vehicle during a municipal festival, Delicado and her longtime partner, Subinspector Fermín Garzón, have almost nothing to go on beyond a rumor: a woman made a substantial purchase at the victim's stall the previous evening.

As the pair track down the mystery buyer, they discover that someone else is already several steps ahead of them, threatening anyone connected to the case with violence to keep the truth buried. The investigation carries the detectives across Barcelona and beyond, using the crime — as the series has always done — as a way into the city's social fabric, while the veteran double act's dry, well-worn banter cuts through the darker material.