Festival BCBlack in 2024 ran from February 5 to 11, with publishers lighting up the calendar as the year began. The focus was on black crime fiction, setting a brisk pace for the early months and guiding readers through a dense slate of upcoming releases.
First shots of the year:
Black Salamander. January 11
The year opens with a novel set in a city scarred by racial tensions following a controversial judicial ruling. A gripping subway death and the disappearance of a white teenager intensify the mystery, weaving a tense portrait of a society on edge.
Destination. January 17
A team led by veteran inspector Petra Delicado returns to Barcelona to solve a peculiar case: the murder of a minibus owner whose culinary tour rides through the city attracts sketchy dealings with a mysterious buyer. The investigation lines up a cast of seasoned partners and fresh clues.
Planet/Pillar. January 10
De la Motte, a former security head with a global background, arrives from chilly Sweden with a large stack of novels. A letter of introduction in Spain spotlights Leo Asker, a sharp investigator sent to a unit focused on unresolved cases, hinting at a procedural with international scope.
RBA. first of February
Five years after a prestigious award, a celebrated American writer turns the lens on hot-button race issues once more, reuniting with a charismatic detective who confronts white supremacist violence within a canvassed community.
Sunrise. January 17
A Canary returns to the scene with a tale blending homophobia, revenge, and endurance as detective Ricardo Blanco navigates pandemic-era tensions. In Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, two respected community figures are found slain in their home soon after a period of confinement.
Reservoir Books / Proa. January 17
The Norwegian bestseller shifts into darker territory, tracing a 1980s mystery as a young boy named Richard confronts a vanished classmate and a skeptical town that refuses to hear the truth.
Editor’s club. January 17
A renowned Israeli writer known for Holocaust-themed explorations uses noir to tell a contemporary story. An intelligence operative, who has long questioned the ethics of interrogation, must track down the planner of a devastating attack.
Anagram. January 17
Argentinian author Pablo Maurette crafts a police conspiracy surrounding prosecutor Silvia Rey, where responsibility for a Christmas Eve murder in 2000 becomes tangled in a dangerous web of power and secrecy.
Six Barrals. January 24
The veteran humorist and social satirist returns with a triple investigation set in Barcelona in 2022, where a quirky unit must untangle a decade-spanning conspiracy rooted in a Franco-era group that still unsettles the present.
Alfaguara. February 1
A sharp-eyed Argentinian writer probes corruption, organized crime, and power when a writer with a taste for dark truth reunites with a former partner who asks for a risky retelling of a family tragedy tied to a vanished businessman from years past.
Book the Attic. January 29
The author known for high-stakes thrillers returns to the interplay of truth and deceit in a gory tale about a cult that manipulates a teenager into believing a newborn baby is the Antichrist. A writer grapples with career pressures while chasing truth through a dangerous labyrinth of lies.
Al Revés / Clandestina. Fireplace
A Barcelona master writer, approaching a 75th birthday, tackles the sensitive topic of child exploitation amid a region-wide independence debate. A defense attorney and a judge’s controversial decision figure into a narrative where justice and power collide.
Ediciones 62. January 17
The new book from the author of La mala dona threads detective fiction with adventure as a police official and a mysterious woman cross paths in Madagascar in 1998, amid gang struggles for sapphire mines and a fortune of hidden motives.
Ediciones B. January 25
Continuing a popular suspense series, a celebrated writer introduces Ori Aitor Orizaola, an Ertzaintza officer facing a disciplinary file as his nephew stands accused of murder, weaving personal stakes into a high-tension case.
Alfaguara / Column. February 1
Instinct peels back the mystery of motherhood, while Rumor revisits friendship and jealousy through three neighbors whose lives collide when a child vanishes during a moment of peril and rumor ripples through the community.
On the other hand. February
A late-1931 Barcelona investigation follows a German woman’s murder discovered after a national festival, as a Buenos Aires-based author crafts a true-crime narrative centered on an exiled journalist drawn into the case.
Source. January 25
The third installment in a relentless series follows Eddie Flynn as he races to save an innocent man from the death penalty, confronting a sadistic prosecutor, a corrupt sheriff, and a town pulled into a deadly cycle of fear.
Ciruela. Fireplace
Twilight’s mystery centers on Commissioner Perro Lascano, hospitalized in a luxury care home where memory fails and a new crime unfolds. The investigation makes him the prime suspect in a case that could expose a larger conspiracy.
7 bullets in the room after BCNegra:
Planet/Pillar. February 28
A psychological thriller from a French-American author follows a serial killer who remains a perfect husband and father through the eyes of his daughter and a woman kept captive for five years who unexpectedly returns to complicate the truth.
Sixth Floor / Periscopi. March 11
A campus novel meets Hitchcockian suspense as a podcaster unpacks a haunting murder from her student days, blurring lines between true crime fever and personal memory.
RBA. March
A versatile American writer known for dark storytelling explores how a narrator’s version of events can mislead readers when a sister’s disappearance is in question, inviting doubt about every claim made.
Salamander. March 14
A Canadian author returns with a new mystery featuring the eccentric retired Quebec police chief Armand Gamache, who learns that a will hides unusual provisions and an unforeseen alliance with a bookseller and a builder.
HarperCollins. March
A writer and director behind Pamplona Negra teams with a sharp investigator to examine a twisted case of a real estate agent who despises wealth, inviting readers into a tense pursuit of truth.
Salamander. March 21
Following a celebrated work, a Japanese author presents an unlikely tale about an architect who devotes himself to constructing a house deep in the mountains. A year later, a mystery lingers as the family who planned to live there vanishes without a trace.
DNA. May 23
A retired Chicago police officer now in Ireland searches for peace, becoming entangled with a woman whose son’s reckless choices spark a dangerous turn when a father reappears seeking control and revenge.