I'll Take Everything From You

Berta is the greatest Spanish detective of all time. She is a tiny woman, no more than one metre fifty high, with a freckled face, ginger hair, and a squint. Although her pronunciation is clearly Castilian with, each vowel and consonant cleanly and perfectly articulated in the purest correct style, she swears like a lorry driver. She gambles, drinks like a fish, and smokes like a chimney. She has been married so many times that she can't even remember how many husbands she has had, but despite her dysfunctions, no one can deny that she also has one of the most brilliant minds in Spain and many would say in the whole world. On 21st February 2012, successful businessman Miguel Menendez Pelayo asks Berta for her help, He has lost everything: his fortune, his home, and his wife and children. It seems to be a clear case of identity spoofing; someone has forged his identity and is now living his life. Berta, her butler and lover Fermin, her kleptomaniac dwarf sister Marta and her assistants the Ghanaian nurse Rosa Mara and martial arts expert Felipe embark on a journey to discover the truth about Miguel Menendez Pelayo's case. But nothing is what it seems!
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Mar Escribano (the author of the book) was born in Spain in 1968. She moved to the United Kingdom in 1986, apparently without rhyme or reason, where she studied the nowadays unusable and useless degree in modern languages at the University of Salford (Manchester). Later, when translators and interpreters actually existed, she practised these professions in London. She has now settled in this Brexit capital, outside Europe, where she currently sells shoes and handbags, writes middle-of-the-road books, researches useless things, and goes on wild goose chases at night (cazando gamusinos).