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THE 'SENTINEL' SPANISH NO 1 BEST SELLER
THE SENTINEL/EXILE FACEBOOK PAGE: http://www.facebook.com/#!/MarkOldfieldSentinel
Twitter: @centinelaUK
Blog: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6449625.Mark_Oldfield/blog
'The Sentinel' available in Italian as 'Quindici Cadaveri' and in Spanish as 'Muerte en Madrid.'
Shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller of 2013
The Judges said: "A very dark and chilling account of Spain under Franco, this novel is intensely atmospheric and a truly substantial work."
"A remarkably accomplished and interesting debut.." -Literary Review.
"Superbly told... a remarkable first thriller that bodes exceptionally well for Oldfield's future' The Daily Mail.
Hello, I'm Mark Oldfield and I'm a writer and freelance criminologist with a long standing passion for Spain and all things Spanish(and Basque).
Thanks for stopping by to check out my books 'The Sentinel,' and 'The Exile.' Both are
dark noir thrillers and form part of the 'Vengeance of Memory' trilogy, a tale of lies corruption and deceipt set in Spain during the 1950s and the present day.
I first visited Spain in 1976. I loved it so much,I became a regular visitor. The years following Franco's death in 1975 saw a transition from Dictatorship to Democracy in Spain and I witnessed at first hand the brutality of the police and security forces against protesters in the Basque country.
A few years later, when I went to work in Spain, I became fascinated by the lingering echoes of the Civil War that still resonated as the country moved toward democracy. As a result, I began to study the Civil War and the years of dictatorship that followed. 'The Sentinel' reflects some aspects of the dark history of the years of Franco's dictatorship.
If you don't like scenes of violence then these books probably aren't for you.
***************************The Exile****************************
1954 The Basque Country
Exiled from Madrid, secret policeman Comandante Guzmán finds himself in the Basque country hunting a murderous bandit, 'El Lobo'. Guzmán must be discrete since the US Ambassador is on holiday just over the border in France and any hint that Franco's regime is having difficulties maintaining order could result in the Americans pulling out of their recent trade agreement, thereby wrecking the feeble Spanish economy.
The mission will not be easy: Guzmán was last here during the Civil War and what happened then still burns in his memory. Soon, things rapidly become complicated: Guzmán is hindered by encounters with the deranged Military Governor, General 'Madman' Mellado, a beautiful heiress and a pair of Basque witches, one of whom bears an uncanny resemblance to a woman long dead.
Backed up only by Corporal Ochoa and a squad of inept Civil Guards, Guzmán devises a plan to lure El Lobo into an ambush. But as he leads his men up into the vast silence of the mountains, Guzmán enters a harsh, alien land, where time is written in stone and nothing is forgotten. As he'll find out, that includes him. Soon, Guzman finds himself at the centre of a dark web of intrigue and deception as his past and present converge on him seeking revenge.
2010, Madrid: Forensic Investigator Ana María Galíndez returns to work, scarred physically and mentally from her encounter with Guzmán's dark legacy. Though ordered to drop her work on the Guzmán case, she secretly drives to the Basque Country where a local Civil Guard has found the site of a massacre. Sealed in the cellar of a ruined building are three skeletons, each bound to a chair, each savagely hacked to death. In the debris surrounding them, a scimitar, stamped with a name: Capitán Leopoldo Guzmán.
But Galíndez soon has other issues to address. With an election approaching, the government wants to gain votes by funding an investigation into the 'Niños Robados,' the thousands of children stolen from their parents during the Franco era. Galíndez is allocated the job in the hope that her findings will distract voters from Spain's growing economic problems.
As she doggedly pursues the case, Galíndez soon sets alarm bells ringing in high places when her investigation uncovers links between the large scale theft of children after the Civil War and powerful figures in the present day. As the dirty secrets of the past begin to emerge, she finds the horror of the stolen children even casts a shadow over her own family.
Unexpectedly suspended on a charge that could end her career, Galíndez returns home to examine one last piece of evidence, unaware her enemies are closing in, determined to silence her for good.
************************The Dead*******************************************
It's 1982 and Spain is changing fast. Franco has been dead seven years and the forthcoming election is expected to return a socialist government for the first time in 50 years. Not that Leo Guzman is looking forward to democracy. He and his bosses fear that the socialists will start to take reprisals against the people who so brutally enforced Franco's dictatorship- people like Guzman. The Comandante would like to retire to the south and spend his time with the Swedish women now flocking to Spain. But his long promised payoff is no longer available. If Guzman wants money, he'll have to raise it another way. And when his old boss, Brigadier General Gutierrez offers him the chance to do just that, Guzman agrees to carry out one last -and highly dangerous- mission.
Back in the present day, Ana Maria Galindez has just awoken from a drugged stupor after being kidnapped and is about to be tortured by her enemies.
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