All Entries in the "Semana Santa" Category
Semana Santa available again
My very first book, Semana Santa, has been out of print in the UK for a few years, even though the movie of it is still available. However thanks to my very enthusiastic audio publisher you can now get it again via audio, beautifully narrated by Sean Barrett.
I’m rather proud of this book, particularly the opening which you can listen to for free on the page at Whole Story Audio. Thanks to everyone at WF Howes for making this possible.
A Spanish debut… my first novel
Holy Week in Spain… and a murderer is loose. Academic Maria Gutierrez can see something in his ways that the police are missing. But her insight does nothing to help her popularity in the force-and draws her to the attention of the killer.
The Angel Brothers, two controversial modern artists, are found dead in a southern Spanish city, in a killing that emulates a famous painting. Visiting academic Maria Gutierrez was supposed to be an observer to the police investigation. But her own past in the city soon puts her one step ahead of the cops… and in the killer’s sights.
Translated into many languages, and a continuing summer hit in Germany, Semana Santa marked my world debut as a novelist with a dark and powerful tale set in a region of Europe most English language writers ignored at the time.
In 2000 Semana Santa was filmed, mainly on location in Seville, starring Mira Sorvino, below. The movie, in which David had no involvement, went straight to DVD in most territories. It is still available under the title The Angel of Death in the US, and as Semana Santa in Europe.
Authors know nothing about movies
No. I mean that. Really. They made a movie of my first book, Semana Santa. I never knew it had been released until I was wandering down the Via Nazionale in Rome one day and saw my name on a movie poster across the street. Maybe that coloured my view of the thing, which has never been charitable to be honest.
But it’s now out in the US on DVD, as The Angel of Death. And an interesting thread has gathered on iMDb with a bunch of people saying it’s not that bad, and quite good in parts. Is it? Hell, I don’t know. You tell me. Though I must admit that if you look at the US trailer here it does look quite interesting. You can also see some stills here too.
A lot of these were taken in the same battered mansion in the old Jewish quarter of Seville which served as umpteen different locations in the book. A lovely place, now part of the rather nice hotel Las Casas de la Juderia.
Point of fact: I never wrote a word of this movie, and not a lot of my original book is in the thing either. It was, let us say, an interesting experience all round, and if you enjoy the movie, good for you!
I will say one thing though. It was while I was on location in Seville for a week (uninvited, at my own expense) that I first had the idea of writing another dark Mediterranean crime story. That turned into A Season for the Dead, the start of the Costa series. So who knows….? I guess I did get something out of it after all.
And here, for the record, is one of the nice reviews on iMDb…
For the life of me I cannot explain why this film has received such hostile comments. Actually, I expected not much when I rented this. The presence of Mira Sorvino led me to think that this might be just another cheapo US horror flick shot in Europe. Not so. In fact, I found it to be a modest, yet highly effective little murder thriller set against the background of picturesque Seville, very much reminiscent of 70s giallo cinema and 70s Spanish thriller movies. It is a film that primarily deals with destroyed families - two of the cops were robbed of their loved ones, and the great Alida Valli (in one of her last roles) plays an old widow who stems from a highly respected family that has also fallen apart. The villains of the piece - and no, this is not really a spoiler! - are monsters from the days of the Spanish Civil War - a degenerated family in themselves.
The story unfolds at a slow pace, but a clever and moody screenplay (that is totally devoid of the inane babbling that spoils so many of today’s b-horror movies) makes the characters quite interesting and unusual. Throw in a few giallo murders and good photography, and what we have is a charmingly old-fashioned, moody piece of cinema. It is definitely not to be mistaken for a a-murder-a-reel horror shocker, but if one has a sweet tooth for slow, morbid thrillers, it should prove worthwhile. It’s maybe not one the same level as Guillermo del Toro’s THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE, but what a nice surprise it was…