The siege - Arturo Perez-Reverte

Winner of the CWA International dagger 2014

C?diz, 1811. Spain is battling for independence while America is doing the same. But in the streets of the most liberal city in Europe other battles are taking place. A serial killer is on the loose, flaying young women to death. Each of these murders takes place near the site where a French bomb has just fallen. It is the job of policeman Rogelio Tizon to find the murderer and avoid public scandal in a city already posied on the brink.

C?diz is a complex chessboard on which an unseen hand is moving the pieces that will decide the fate of its protagonists: a corrupt and brutal policeman; the female heir to important shipping company; an unscrupulous corsair captain; a taxidermist who is also a spy, a hardened soldier, and an eccentric French artilleryman.

With all the intrigue and romance of Perez-Reverte's bestsellers, THE DUMAS CLUB and THE FLANDERS PANEL, THE SIEGE is the story of a city and a people who will never be the same again.