Shadow of the Rock (Spike Sanguinetti 1)

Author/Guide: Thomas Mogford

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: the landscapes and politics of Gibraltar and Tangier are as challenging as each other

ISBN: 978-1408831397
Genre: Thriller

Comment

What you need to know before your trail

One hot sticky night in Gibraltar, Spike Sanguinetti is visited by an old school friend Solomon Hassan. Spike is a lawyer and Solomon says that he has been accused of murdering a Spanish girl in Tangiers, that he is innocent and so needs his help. The authorities in Tangier are trying to extradite him and so Spike travels there himself in the hope of delaying the extradition.

But things are complicated further when Solomon’s boss gets in on the act and asks Spike to delay Solomon’s trial. Solomon’s boss Nadir is the founder of an energy company on the verge of signing away a deal in the sahara and that Solomon’s trial could scupper the lot.

There’s someone else in the shadows however with information on Nadeer himself..

Locations

Reset

Travel Guide

Gibraltar and Tangier

Two very different locations in different countries yes but not too far apart in the world of renewable energies and political power. Both have rocky landscapes in more ways than one and both settings are unusual and unknown to many people. Not so much on the tourist trail but rather on the trail of secrets, corruption and lies, at least in this novel.

Gibraltar aka ‘The Rock’

“The magical island for the idle English’

Spike Sanguinetti may have the name of a detective or spy but he’s actually a tax lawyer and working in a very unique financial setting – Gibraltar – with all the connotations with tax and money that this conjures up.

The Rock is introduced with names such as Bedlam Court and Devil’s Tower, and for language enthusiasts has a very interesting mix of languages spoken there and its own mix of Spanish, Hebrew Italian and of course English

Before you get a chance to fully appreciate the rock however, the desert sands of the next location are whipped up around your eyes….

Morocco

Solomon cannot return here for he claims his innocence and in a land where being Jewish could prove a disadvantage, he will certainly not receive a warm welcome. Stories abound of the double dealings in the energy sector here, this is the land being fought over by energy companies. When Spike gets together with a Bedouin woman, he finds out that her father owned the land where the multinational company is building. Now with his disappearance, this land becomes more of a desert in every sense of the word, a distant and remote place where isolation is your only companion.

Hot and humid, sticky and unwelcoming, Morocco is separated from the Gibraltar by the strait of water linking the Atlantic Ocean directly to the Mediterranean Sea. Water known as a gut for the swirling waters, gutteral and deep waters, swirling sense of dread.

Spike will need guts of his own to sort this out.