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For those who regularly taste the prose and stories of Frederick Forsyth, John Le Carré, Arturo Pérez Reverte or Lorenzo Silva, it is easy to find their imprint in the novel with which Pedro Lasuen decided to move from reporting or journalistic chronicling to the higher echelon of literature. His novel “Perhaps” (Mascarón de Proa, Editorial Almuzara, 274 pages) is a more than promising start in this range.
The Costa del Sol is the setting of its history, which brings together billionaires of a new kind, intelligence agents from the Moroccan, French and Spanish secret services, and international crime at the highest level. A brilliant commander of a special unit of the Guardia Civil, an investigative journalist in difficult times and an anonymous dead man found on a golf course converge in a dizzying intrigue where surprises follow one another. Stormy pasts and turbulent presents fuel the hope of unraveling the solution to one of the most convoluted and thrilling police and espionage cases its protagonists have faced.
Pedro Lasuén (Madrid, 1974) knows the terrain well. He has known the Costa del Sol since his childhood, before traveling the African continent and visiting some of its prisons, working in France as a journalist for Euronews for twenty years and working for the EFE agency in several African countries, before immersing himself in the world of judo, of which he is the media manager for the International Judo Federation. Like classic writers of the genre, he sampled the good and bad sides of the ups and downs of international politics, especially cross-border politics.
Written with great fluidity, which is transmitted to the reader, “Tal vez” feels like the first chapter of a saga that is sure to provide a continuity that, for the reader eager for good stories, seems more than obvious. Thanks to his vast journalistic experience, Lasuén avoids stylistic frills and focuses directly on the action, on the pure facts, and only goes into details if they are relevant to the development and the final outcome of the plot. .
He imbues his fast-paced story with a humor halfway between British irony and Hispanic casticismo, a mix that helps shape the characters, each of which ends up becoming the reader’s accomplice in some of their facets.
