Lizard Tricks

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Literature · Subcategory: Literary fragments · Year: 2024 · Authors: Jon Arretxe

Jon Arretxe (Basauri, Vizcaya, 1963) is a versatile and successful literary author who has developed most of his work in the Basque language, being regularly translated into Spanish. He began his career in the early 1990s, an activity he combines with lectures and musical activities. Over the years, he has earned a wide variety of genres that, in addition to travel literature, also include humorous storytelling and crime novels.

It is in this latter category that his work Mañas de lagarto is framed, published in 2024. This novel is his tenth installment in the saga featuring the African detective Touré, an illegal black immigrant settled in Bilbao, who this time lands in Gran Canaria, where the plot unfolds, especially in the island's capital and specifically in the La Isleta neighbourhood. 

The miserable conditions in which the "undocumented" like Touré live force them to accept any job offer, and in this case the illegal sports betting business will appear as a way to earn easy money. The African man will become involved in the practice of Canarian wrestling, persuaded by a former champion of the discipline, the "Lizard of Escaleritas". 

Mañas de Lagarto is a tribute that Arretxe pays to his friend and also Gran Canarian novelist Alexis Ravelo, to such an extent that Touré and Eladio Monroy, Ravelo's favourite detective, cross paths in this turbulent story, in which the Basque writer rigorously denounces the excesses of the powerful and the situation of the excluded.

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