Spanish Beauty

Meet Michela, English gangster father, flamenco dancer mother, a hard, uncompromising police officer, operating on the shadier side of the law.

In the company of this unorthodox, magnetically compelling character, cult writer Esther García Llovet takes us on a breath-taking, high-speed, anarchic romp through the underbelly of the pearl of the Costa Blanca, Benidorm, on the hunt for Reggie Kray’s stolen cigarette lighter. Beyond the sunburn and all-day fry-ups, in casinos, bars that are fronts for money laundering and flashy high society parties, we meet an unforgettable cast of characters English gangsters and Russian mafiosi, chancers, no-hopers, and low-life of all complexions in this unconventional yet literary thriller.

With a turn of phrase that always astonishes, an eye for detail that is as forensic as it is cinematic, a sense of humour as dry as a glass of fino, and a wilful desire to break conventional genres, Llovet’s book feels like the best of Almodóvar in surreal, novel form.

A seedy, sun-kissed literary thriller. Johanna Thomas-Corr

A bracing fever-dream pulsing to the rhythms of the rotting heart of the Costa Blanca, Spanish Beauty reads like Raymond Chandler purging himself in the depths of a gin hangover. Declan Burke

García Llovet reveals her full talent with this novel – electric, pop, hugely enjoyable and perfectly cinematographic. I want Tarantino to film it. Aloma Rodríguez