Night of the Caiman

In Night of the Caiman, a writer, Ricardo Barros, seeks to complete his magnum opus and in the process to recreate something of the life of David Goodis. He will even move to Goodis' native Philadelphia to follow in his footsteps and discover something of the darker corners that this city contains. His teacher in the art of writing is Vicente Mallón, pseudonym Vincent Malone, whose secretary, Selma, the daughter of a local policeman, will also end up in Philly, seeking the lost treasure that she lovingly handed over to a man who was not deserving of her trust. Each paragraph in this narrative has been painstakingly constructed. The book in its entirety serves as a tribute to all the authors and filmmakers - from David Goodis to Dashiell Hammett and Patricia Highsmith, François Truffaut and Paul Wendkos - who with their work and devotion to their craft have gifted us hours of entertainment. Diego Ameixeiras was born in Lausanne, but grew up in Ourense (the Oregon of his books). He is the best-known writer of noir fiction in Galicia. Prizes he has won include the Xerais for Three Seconds of Memory and the Spanish Critics' Award for The Deer and the Shadow. Tell Me Something Dirty and Drive Quickly received special mentions at Black Week, a week in Gijón devoted to crime writing. He has also been recognized for his work as a scriptwriter for theatre and film, and has translated works by Chandler and Hammett into Galician for the publishing house Hugo e Munin.