La pista de hielo

In a Costa Brava town, a man named Enric Rosquelles, a municipal official, secretly uses public funds to build a skating rink in an abandoned mansion, for a woman who is a skater, Nuria. Roberto Bolaño tells the story through three narrators, Remo Morán, Gaspar Heredia and Rosquelles, and the crime story slowly emerges from their accounts. It is one of his early works.

It suits readers who want Bolaño in a compact, noir-flavored mode before his larger novels. You get a short, atmospheric mystery with a seaside setting and a lonely, obsessive center.

Thought-provoking; a moderate read.

Best for readers like The Story Seeker. Which reader are you?