Ya no quedan junglas adonde regresar

Every Thursday, an aging retiree nicknamed "El Gentleman" meets Olga, a street sex worker in Madrid, for a shared meal and the only genuine connection either of them has. When Olga is brutally murdered and four corrupt lawyers emerge as suspects, the old man abandons what remains of his quiet life to hunt them down one by one.

Told through the interwoven perspectives of the vengeful old man, the female detective investigating the case, and a hitman closing in from another angle, Carlos Augusto Casas and Julián Ibáñez García's debut novel moves at a relentless, dialogue-driven pace. It won the VI Premio Wilkie Collins de Novela Negra along with the Tuber Melanosporum, Novelpol, Ciudad de Santa Cruz and Tormo Negro prizes, and was a finalist for the Premio Silverio Cañada at the Semana Negra de Gijón.

A bleak, morally corrosive story about what loss strips away, "Ya no quedan junglas adonde regresar" sits squarely in Spanish noir tradition — sympathetic to its most damaged characters even as it follows them past the point of no return.