The Lords of Time

Starred review from May 31, 2021
Spanish author Sáenz’s conclusion to her White City trilogy (after The Water Rituals) brilliantly fuses two parallel narratives. In 2019, Unai Lopez de Ayala, a police profiler in the Basque city of Vitoria, investigates the disappearance of two young sisters as well as a series of gruesome murders that may be related. Meanwhile, Unai becomes obsessed by The Lords of Time, “the novel everyone in Vitoria was talking about,” by an elusive author who won’t reveal his identity. Set in 1192, it “wasn’t so much a book as a trap made of paper, an ambush of words… and there was no escape.” Passages from the novel gradually reveal hidden connections among old Basque families, with a staggering wealth of literary, cultural, and sociological material that relates to Unai’s investigation. Besides providing memorable glimpses into a little-known European cultural milieu, Sáenz offers profound insights into the psychology of serial killers, shown as skilled and charismatic professionals, who, devoid of empathy, prey parasitically on the gullible. This Basque noir deserves a wide audience.