Javier Marías Book order

BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 ACCORDING TO GUARDIAN AND THE SPECTATOR The final novel from one of the greatest writers of the past half century'No-one nowadays writes prose like Javier Marias . . . If you're already a fan, you'll know what to expect and rejoice. If you're not, what a treat you have in store' The HeraldTomas Nevinson, a retired MI6 agent, is working for the British Embassy in Madrid when his former handler, the sinister Bertram Tupra, offers to bring him back inside for one last assignment. His mission: to catch and, if necessary, kill a terrorist gone to ground in Northern Spain after bombings in Barcelona and Zaragoza. The trouble is there are three suspects - all women - and it may not actually be any of them. To find out, Nevinson must move incognito to the small town where the three women separately live, and become an intimate friend to each, in the hope of uncovering a clue . . .A philosophical thriller with a climate of suspense to rival le Carre and a psychological depth that is purely Marias's own, this is a novel that explores the deepest of human questions: in what circumstances can killing be called just?Translated by Margaret Jull Costa'The last word from a master . . . once you've been inside Marias' world, to spend too long outside is unbearable' The Sunday Times'A twisting espionage tale shot through with slantwise humour . . . seductive and inescapably poignant' Observer

She was bored and fought against her boredom, which only bored her still more.' Five sparkling, irreverent brief portraits of famous literary figures (including libertines, eccentrics and rogues) from Spain's greatest living writer.

Jacques Deza has been recruited into an undercover spy network by the inscrutable Bertram Tupra. But when he is forced to witness an act of horrifying brutality in a night-club, he finds himself falling apart, haunted by his own memories of the bloodshed of the Spanish Civil War

'For a while, she wasn't sure that her husband was her husband. Sometimes she thought he was, and sometimes not.' Berta and Tomas meet in Madrid and, though both young, they decide to spend their lives together. Eighteen and betrothed, Tomas leaves to study at Oxford. His talent for languages quickly catches the interest of a certain government agency, but Tomas resists their offers - until one day he makes a mistake that will affect the rest of his life, and that of his beloved Berta. After university he returns to marry her, knowing he won't be able to stay for long . . . Gripping and intricate, Berta Isla is about a relationship built on secrets and lies - and the counter forces of resentment and loyalty at its core.

Stylish, and spooky, essays on films, books, places and people by a world- class novelist The Art Desk

Century after century, the essence of Venice is unchanging. It is a place of contradictions, equal parts glamour and chaos. As a young man, Javier Marías made the city his home; since then he has left and returned many times, drawn back to its labyrinth of blind alleys, its pearly green canals, its imagined spaces. His love affair with the city has lasted over thirty years - he has traced every inch of its endless interior, has lived among the Venetians and lived apart from them. In Venice, An Interior, Marías sets out to uncover the heart of this strange and enchanting place

Publisher's description. From one of Spain's most acclaimed literary voices comes a rich and complex portrait of mutual deception, toxic love and cruel, lingering guilt. A youth caught in the middle of someone else's bitter marriage; a beautiful woman scorned; a man torn between conscience and will. Step into the melancholic, unforgiving world of Javier Marías. Penguin

'We lose everything because everything remains except us'. In this book, the author recalls the strange events and people that shaped his past, including ghostly literary figures, a pilot, an adventurer, a brother who died as a child and the king of an island in the Caribbean, we begin to question the nature of time, memory and reality itself.

Every day, Maria Dolz stops at the same cafe. And every day she watches a couple following the same routine. Then one day they aren't there. She comes across a photograph of the man, lying stabbed in the street. When the woman returns with her children, who are then collected by a different man, a new light is shed on the death."