Off side - Manuel Vzquez Montalbn

Barcelona's new soccer star is receiving death threats and Pepe Carvalho, gourmet gumshoe and former political prisoner under Franco, is hired to find out who's behind it.

Pepe Carvalho is set to retire. Content to live out the rest of his days enjoying the best food and wine Catalonia has to offer, his plans are put on hold when an executive from Barcelona's world-famous soccer team pays him a visit. "The center forward will be killed at dusk," reads the note the executive gives to Carvalho.

With that, the detective, former communist, and one-time employee of the CIA, must find out where this note is from. Is the threat real? Is it the work of one person? Or is it one of the real estate moguls tearing Barcelona apart in their battle over the most important properties of Catalonia?

Here Montalbn does for the game of soccer what he has done for food. In an exquisite portrait of Spain's most beloved sport, soccer and politics mix in a gripping mystery about the reckless excesses-and limits-of power.