Rich, stylish, engaging - alive with inventiveness and pellucid intelligence - The Truth About the Savolta Case brilliantly evokes the revolutionary atmosphere of Barcelona in the shadows of World War I (1917-1919), when the capital of Catalonia was besieged by violent confrontations between its proletariat and bourgeoisie. Barcelona, the true protagonist of Mendoza's book, is captured in a seemingly absurdist, lively tableau featuring social festivities, the "low-down" ambience of night-life, assassinations and love affairs, explosives and flowers, madness and resignation. Here is the magic of Barcelona as it is lived by a vast array of characters evincing the complex joys and sorrows of humanity, even as they possess an air of the puppet, the caricature, about them: an idealistic journalist, a French adventurer, a perplexing gypsy woman, a misogynist bodyguard, a pig-headed commissioner, a visionary beggar, rapacious captains of industry, liberated women, circus performers, and more. A narrative extraordinary for its elegant pastiche of prose styles - and informed by the excellence of popular genres ranging from the Byzantine "novel" to the courtly romance to the picaresque and on to the modern detective story - The Truth About the Savolta Case deftly affirms its clarity of intention: to render real the tragicomic genius locii of an enchanting city.