Melchor Mar?n is a young cop from the big city, Barcelona. But he is also an outsider. The son of a prostitute, Melchor went to prison as a teenager, convicted of working for a Colombian drug cartel. Behind bars, he read a book that changed his life: Les Mis?rables. Then his mother was murdered. He decided to become a policeman.

Now he has been sent to Terra Alta, a small town in rural Catalu?a, to investigate the horrific double-murder of a wealthy local man and his wife. Before long, it becomes clear that nothing about the case is quite as it seems.

Even the Darkest Night is a thought-provoking, elegantly constructed thriller about justice, revenge and, above all, the struggles of a righteous man trying to find his place in a corrupt world.

Translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean