2024-02-15 14:44:12
Time.news – In her native Spain, from 2013 to today, her books have sold over 1 million copies, while in Italy we know her thanks to ‘Quel che la mare hide’ (2022), and ‘The secret port’ (released in last year), both published by Ponte alle Grazie. On the occasion of the arrival in bookstores, again for Ponte alle Grazie, of ‘A place to go’, Time.news met Maria Oruña, the author who created the successful mystery cycle dedicated to the investigations of Civil Guard lieutenant Valentina Redondo.
What is ‘A Place to Go’ about?
It is a journey through time and to various countries, which starting from the mysterious discovery of the corpse of a woman in medieval clothes holding an ancient coin in her hand, enters the folds of the existence of a group of adventurous archaeologists and speleologists. Called to solve the mystery is Valentina Redondo.
The action is set in Cantabria and the crux of the plot is linked to speleology: did you use prehistoric caves – around 6,500 in that region – as a metaphor for an underground world?
The meaning of the book is implicit in the title. All the characters are searching, even internally, for a place to go, understood as a reason to wake up in the morning. When one of them realizes that he no longer has any, the tragic ending comes. In writing it was my intention to also push the reader to ask himself if he has a place to go, but in a positive and optimistic sense. I believe that each of us can find our place in the world.
The story follows multiple temporal planes and explores other countries in addition to Spain, including Germany, Mexico, India, Sri Lanka, Poland and Italy: is there a specific reason for this choice?
When I started interviewing speleologists and archaeologists for documentation, it was clear to me the importance of weaving a plot made up of places and characters with different origins and personal histories. The norm, in fact, is that the participants in the expeditions come from different nations or even continents. In the case of an Italian, for example, I chose Capri as his place of origin, so that the wealth of natural caves on that island would explain his impulse to try to unravel the mysteries of caves around the world.
Who are your reference authors?
I don’t have writers but favorite stories, it’s depending on the setting of the plot that I understand if I like a book. But obviously I love many authors, from Rosa Montero to Fred Vargas to Pierre Lemaitre, to the Italians Paolo Giordano, Donatella Di Piertantonio, Camilleri and Eco. I also read a lot of non-fiction, especially science and history.
Do you define yourself as a classic mystery writer or an author who tries to innovate the genre?
Noir is such a broad genre that it is difficult to define. Even if the basis of the classics, like Chandler, remains fundamental, anyone who tries their hand at it today finds himself innovating even if he doesn’t want to. I was formed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, therefore with different inspirations from the past. Furthermore, I don’t define myself as a writer of noir, but of mystery, who in her books combines different influences such as history, science, archeology and speleology.
With the investigations of the Civil Guard lieutenant Valentina Redondo you have created a saga: what in your opinion is the relationship between seriality and literature?
My case is different from others: each book deals with an independent mystery with its own themes, and can be said to be self-contained. This is why I need a lot of time for research every time. Six books by Valentina Redondo have been published in Spain and each one has its own narrative style: the first is an intimate historical one, the second, that is ‘A place to go’, is a scientific thriller, the third a gothic book, the fourth deals with a so-called enigma of the locked room – a la Agatha Christie -, the fifth is a domestic noir and the sixth an action thriller. It will be the last in the series, not because it has no more stories to tell, but because the genres are exhausted.
#noir #mystery