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Writer Enrique is summoned back to Barcelona when his adoptive father, Artur, is murdered. Enrique is stunned by the violent death of a man who took him in and lovingly raised him after Enrique’s parents died when he was 11 years old. Artur was a gentle soul, a well-read man who sold antiques for decades. He was well-liked and well-respected in his community.
Enrique received a letter from Artur mailed shortly before the latter’s death, with a postscript sharing his excitement over an invaluable find. After buying the contents of an old estate, Artur had discovered something fascinating and even potentially dangerous. The question then becomes this: did the discovery actually lead to Artur’s murder, or was the killing simply a theft or burglary gone wrong?
The Antiquarian is part murder mystery, part thriller connected to a powerful old religious relic. It can read sometimes like The Da Vinci Code, with its references to Jewish mysticism and a secret object hidden centuries before.
I ran across this book as a recommendation on some list of particular kinds of murder mysteries, and it piqued my interest. It has a lot of elements that grab my attention: its setting, the mysterious history, the sometimes-gothic feel. I will say that since I adore Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, I felt more of a thrill each time this book referenced the same places around Barcelona.
The mysticism and the unfolding of the history of the Jewish people in Spain and this relic were pretty interesting. I learned some more history that reinforced bits that I knew before, which is always welcome. This harks back to the time of the Inquisition and how Jews were treated in Spain.
The murder mystery is also engaging, and I enjoyed seeing all of that play out.
One big drawback of the book for me was the author’s ham-handedness when it comes to his female characters. Enrique spends a lot of time here with his ex-wife, Bety, and a woman named Mariola who works in the antiques community. How he describes each of these beautiful women and then puts them into interactions with Enrique made me cringe so often. I’d have been happy for him to cut out those parts entirely, but they do play a hefty role in the plot.
Overall, The Antiquarian is a fairly interesting book but I probably would have been fine not reading it.
Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes 3 uses of strong language (all in one short set of paragraphs), a few instances of moderate profanity, about 20 uses of mild language, and around 10 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes some kissing and some understood (closed-door) intimacy. Violence includes several deaths involving blunt force, sharp objects and falls.
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