The Majorcan writer Carme Riera was elected yesterday a new member of the Royal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española, RAE) to occupy the chair “n”, vacant by academic Valentín García Yebra. Storyteller, writer, linguist and university professor, Carme Riera was born on January 12, 1948 in Palma de Mallorca. She studied Philosophy at the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB), specializing in Spanish Literature of the Golden Age.
It is interesting to note that Carme Riera published last year her first detective fiction novel in Catalan, Natura quasi morta by Edicions 62 (Catalan) and by Alfaguara (Spanish). Available in Kindle.
The blurb reads: In November 2007 Romain Lannuzel, an Erasmus student at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, disappeared without trace. This fact still unsolved, gives rise to this novel, in which Costantinu Iliescu, a Romanian student, also has disappeared mysteriously. His girlfriend and two fellow students report the facts and stir heaven and earth to find him, but both the police and university officials believe Iliescu has left voluntarily. But soon they have to change their minds. The events that take place after the disappearance of the Romanian student show that something terrible, dark and macabre is happening in college.
A police team, headed by Deputy Inspector Manuela Vazquez, began an exhaustive investigation in which the false leads and possible suspects multiply. But, despite their investigations and efforts, they fail to find him. In the minds of teachers, police and students hovers the thick shadow of what appears to be a meticulous and bloodthirsty murderer (my translation).
A Crime is Afoot 