Pequeñas Infamias. Booklist

This elegant mystery, which won the 1998 Planeta Prize in Barcelona, has as many secrets as one of the murder victim’s chocolate fondants. Nestor, a pastry chef with a penchant for other people’s hidden desires, freezes to death in the walk-in cold room where he has just catered a party for Ernesto Teldi, an art collector on the Costa del Sol. Ernesto, his wife, Adela, Nestor’s twisted young employee Chloe, and Serafin, an old friend of the Teldis, all have secrets that Nestor has discovered. His appearance at the party causes much fear and loathing–but who locks that freezer door? Serpentine sentences about childhood memories and furtive desires wrestle with verbal flourishes as light as a random caress. Utterly European in its aristocratic air, and great fun to read even though Nestor’s recipes are tantalizingly incomplete.

GraceAnne DeCandido

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