The past always comes back.
Diana Buffet is a 19-year-old girl who appears brutally murdered in a country house in Rota (south of Spain), next to an old American naval base. The victim has had her breasts amputated and her vagina emptied and sewed up (infibulation). It is the work of a professional and meticulous doctor. The similar murders of three other girls close to Diana happen straight after.
Sergeant Patria Santiago and her colleague – and lover – Corporal Sacha Santos are in charge of the case. After a difficult and frenetic investigation in a very hermetic small town where people know more than say, they end up discovering these murders are a mean and vengeful answer to a series of crimes that happened in the 50s, when Rota became the Spanish capital of excess and sexual vice with the arrival of the American naval base.
Rota, end of the 50s. Inés, a young woman abused by her father, falls in love with James, a lovely and romantic naval officer, and escapes with him to the naval base. He is a pure man with no vices, who believes in keeping chastity until marriage. One night, Inés comes into James’ room. She finds him sleeping naked, covered with a towel. She pulls the towel to discovers he is castrated. James wakes up in a fury and takes her to a bar where his drunk colleagues rape her. Inés becomes pregnant and is tortured during her pregnancy. She dies during childbirth and the baby, José, is adopted by his aunt and uncle (Inés’ sister and her husband, one of the naval officers who raped Inés, but felt guilty and tried to take care of her during the pregnancy). A funeral is organized, and the town turns the blind eye.
When Jose is 6, he is kidnapped by James’ lover, who takes him to Russia to initiate him in the Skopty rituals, his father’s sect. The Skopty believe that purity and salvation of the soul reside in the castration of the sexual organs. They don’t eat meat, they don’t drink, they don’t smoke, they don’t sing… castration is a way to wash away their sins and to become angels on Earth. José grows up, changes his name to Yerik, and goes back to Spain to become a brilliant gynecologist, introverted, very religious, who refuses to practice abortions. In the 90s the abortion law is passed in Spain. Jose/Yerik can’t handle it, and assisting an abortion he practices his first infibulation, and then he disappears.
Now the granddaughters of the three men who raped Yerik’s mother are being murdered. Diana, her three friends, and the descendants of several of the collaborators in the rape.
Patria and Sacha, after the thorough investigation of the case of this serial killer, realize that Yerik is not avenging his mother but following the process of his father. Punishing all the impure ones… and there are still two more victims to go.
RELEVANT DATA: The Last Pigeon is a thriller with some horror elements, frenetic rhythm, full of action and suspense, that has all the ingredients to become the superhit of the year.
Men Marías’ work has the special peculiarity of being set in a very interesting moment of the Spanish 20th Century: the arrival of the American Navy in a grey and conservative Spain. Rota became the capital of sexual vice, full of bars, casinos, pubs and brothels.
The narrative allows us to know the characters in detail. The psychological complexity of the criminal adds the horror elements. The meticulous construction of the investigators, with turbulent pasts and a complex and passional relationship between them adds the psychological thriller elements.
Men María is an author and literary critic winner of the Carmen Martín Gaite Novel Award, and runner up to the Torrente Ballester Award, as well as another 28 mentions in different literary national and international contests.
AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV Series, Miniseries, Film, TV Movie.
AVAILABLE LANGUAGES: Spanish.
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