The ambush shot
The shot from ambush (Spanish: El delantero centro fue asesinado al atardecer ) is a novel by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán from the series about private detective Pepe Carvalho . The novel first appeared in 1988. The German translation by Bernhard Straub was published in 1990 by Rowohlt Verlag . A revised new edition appeared in 2014 under the title Carvalho und der tote Mittelstürmer by the publisher Klaus Wagenbach .
action
The action takes place in Barcelona in autumn 1988. Barcelona is preparing for the 1992 Olympic Games . The richest and most prestigious football club in town - a clear reference to FC Barcelona , but not explicitly mentioned in the novel - is threatened that its new center forward Jack Mortimer will be murdered at sunset. Although the club doesn't pay too much attention to the death threats, it hires Pepe Carvalho to investigate them. In a parallel plot, which is only linked to the main story towards the end of the novel, the aged former star striker of the club, Alberto Palacín, hires back in the northern suburbs of Barcelona after years of oblivion to join the fourth-rate traditional club Centellas FC, which is threatened with relegation play. The background to the plot is the intrigues of football and politics, in particular the speculation about the land surrounding the construction of the Olympic village in Barcelona. The novel also deals with the importance of football as a substitute religion, the role of star strikers as modern heroes and club officials as all-powerful new "gods". In addition to the fictional characters, real players from the Spanish football league , including Bernd Schuster , are often mentioned in the novel .
Characters
In addition to the usual characters in Carvalho thrillers such as Charo, Fuster, Kommissar Contreras and the last appearance of Bromuro, the following characters also play:
- Jack Mortimer: Center forward of the richest football club in town, star shopping for the 88/89 season
- Alberto Palacín: Center forward of the (fictional) soccer club Centellas FC, ex-soccer star
- Doña Concha: landlady
- Marta Becerra and Marçal Lloberola: drug addict couple
- Sánchez Zapico: President of the Centellas FC football club
- Basté de Linyola: President of the richest football club in the city
- Germán Dosrius: Lawyer from Linyola
- Alfons Camps O'Shea: Press Secretary for the richest football club in town
- Raurell: Players' agent and former manager of Palacín
expenditure
- Manuel Vázquez Montalbán: The shot from ambush . Translated from the Spanish by Bernhard Straub. Rowohlt, Reibek near Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-499-42955-1 .
- Manuel Vázquez Montalbán: Carvalho and the dead center forward . Translated from Spanish and edited by Bernhard Straub. Wagenbach, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-8031-2726-6 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Pepe Carvalho: Carvalho and the dead center forward. Excerpt from Google Books , accessed December 15, 2019