The mystery of the haunted crypt

THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED CRYPT

1. - Summary of the book.

While a group of young inmates in an asylum was playing a football game, Dr. Sugrañes party amid calls one of them, exactly the protagonist of this story. The doctor tells Sugrañes accompany him to his office because it has an unexpected visitor. To his amazement, was the Commissioner Flores and a nun who was unaware of.

The reason that the commissioner flowers and the nun had come to see was: about 6 years ago a girl had disappeared without a trace one night, but the strange thing was that it appeared the next day with no memory of what happened. Well, a couple of days ago had been different in the same school girl who lived in the other and wanted him to take charge of the case. Commissioner Flores promised to settle the case if he would take the asylum. I accept without hesitation the young man and released him.

When the star left the center, the first thing hico was going to visit his sister, who worked in a pub at night. He was there with the intention that his sister would know something, but unfortunately it was not like or that's what she said. While he was talking with Cecilia, his sister, appeared a young Swede, who supposedly was the boyfriend of this. The protagonist thought the reason that his sister had told him nothing that was waiting for the Swedish and did not want that they saw them together.

At the time it appeared the young, the star said goodbye to Cecilia and went outside. It was late and I just wanted to get a good shower and find a pension. When staying, knocked on the door, he opened to her surprise was the Swedish boyfriend of his sister. The Swede said nothing, nothing else come sat on the bed. Apparently the Swede was wounded and died several minutes later for reasons unknown.

Without knowing what to do, the protagonist decided to go with the fear that he indict him and went to her sister as soon as he could. When he arrived, he entered her house and to his amazement was the Swede died sitting on the couch. At that moment, she heard screams that came from outside the house, was the police. After the incident, leaving his brother with the police and blamed him for her murder.

While this was happening, the hero approached the school where cases had occurred for more details about what happened. He talked with landscapers, after drugging one of them, they provide sufficient information about victims.

After leaving school, he went in search of Isabella Peraplana, the first girl disappeared years ago. He talked with her for a while but could not remember anything about what happened. Then DGS, of the name of the protagonist, decides to go in search of black Mercedes, Elizabeth's best friend Peraplana.

This, he lived in a town that was near Barcelona and headed there. Mercedes was the only person that could get some information and it happened to their liking. Mercedes told the following: the night Elizabeth disappeared, she awoke at midnight and decided to follow it. Isabel had stayed with a man. The two were introduced through a secret passage underground, where Mercedes was lost and saw a giant fly fainted. Minutes later he awoke to see her friend Elizabeth and confessed that he killed this evil man. While attempting to escape, were again the giant fly and both fainted.

The next day dawned Mercedes in his bed and his concern for his friend was not there, but no more appeared the next day. Being totally innocent, Mercedes blamed the death of the man, but not to accuse Elizabeth admitted. For the reason of a minor, was charged not any charge, but he was assigned to live in the town where he had lived ever since.

Just listen to the information received through the Mercedes, he went to Barcelona in search of Isabella. As I get home from this, he saw an ambulance where he was involved the corpse of Elizabeth. Mercedes told him what had happened to her friend in the crypt, and her friend by not bear to hear that he committed suicide without thinking twice.

Still, Mercedes decides to help the protagonist. While the two are in a waiting taxi Peraplana output, see this get wrapped object appeared to be a person. As this occurs, see a couple looking Peraplana incessantly as it was loaded and the mysterious object. When Peraplana leaves, goes to where the couple and asked what had happened. These will include the following: the husband was a dentist and had bought a very expensive machine to do its job. Unable to pay, ask for help to Mr. Peraplana and this puts them on one condition. He will leave money on the condition that they leave him to his daughter, where her daughter lived above and this one too. Peraplana that day took the child home totally drugged and told parents to immediately take the child to school.

Upon hearing this confession, the young man goes to a bar where he had been with Mercedes. Minutes later, both go to school and became embroiled in it. Diverting attention from the dogs, the protagonist enters the room of girls with the intention of finding a dentist's daughter. When he found made him smell ether for the poor girl that she should go to the tomb. While they were in the secret passage, the girl disappeared from her side. The hero, not knowing what to do started looking everywhere and when he reached a certain place, they could not believe his eyes. Mainly Mercedes sees a man with dark skin who apparently was her lover. The protagonist knows nothing and tries to escape but a few feet is lying on an altar to the dead Swede. Beside this, he sees his sister Candida scared and he tries to escape with his sister, but Candida resists and finally the poor falls unconscious.

Upon awakening in the crypt is surrounded by Commissioner Flores, Dr. Sugrañes, Mercedes and a few nuns unknown. As soon as he joined the young, it extends all present in the maze in order to exit the confined space. As you walk, are a funicular in the middle of the road that led directly to a huge house on top of a hill. After using the object, up to the house where the Commissioner Flores called a patrol.

Upon arrival the patrol, the protagonist tells all the known to all present, the case being solved. Isabel did not kill that man was his father. And that reason was why Elizabeth vanished that night, as his father the "abduction" to try to incriminate her. But not everything went as we had expected: no blame fell on Isabel, but on her best friend, Mercedes. Unfortunately, the commissioner could not fulfill the agreement he had agreed with the young, and that the inquiry had been given some suspicious things about him: concealment of a crime, the military assault, possession and supply of psychotropic substances, theft, burglary ...

Our hero did not object, and so they took him back to the madhouse. The only win was Mercedes who left because it became clear that it was not her killer and for that reason, it never had to return to the town where he had been staying all this time.

2 .- Appointments

• I went to every bank in the plaza, but I was denied the credit they requested them, so I had to resort to financial institutions with a much more demanding as far as interests are concerned. (p. 143) Quote of interests.

• The very donkey ate three aspirins, five and two suppositories tosiletas with the intention of killing cibalgina. Nothing a good laxative can cure. (p. 175) cites drug.

• I got under the table with the intention of carrying out the advertising, but I Aranoa Candida face and kicked me in the solar plexus I short of breath. (p. 162) cites violence

3 .- Characters

• Black Mercedes: It was the college student Lazarists Mothers of San Gervasio, Barcelona. Intimate friend of the girl's strange case happened six years ago and therefore witness. Not to incriminate her friend, she dropped all charges on the murder of a man. It is a young woman with short black hair, wearing glasses, narrow waist and jumping mamelles booming.

• I chose this character because it is one of the most important thing throughout the whole novel.

• After trying several times to lie to young, I gave up. And that night I decided it was time it was learned the only truth about the incident that night. Well then so I started to tell the girl what had happened: one night while I could not sleep a wink, my friend Elizabeth got up and walked to the door where an elderly man was waiting. While this held his hand, the two headed to the chapel and entered into a passageway in order to reach the crypt. In this installment, I missed and I was constantly turning, until suddenly a giant fly appeared before me and what I heard, I faint.

On waking, I only recall seeing the face of my friend Isabel and I was afraid that that had killed the man she had been minutes before. When we were trying to escape, the giant fly again appeared, and unavoidably, we lose heart again. When I awoke, I was in my bed, but to watch my friend did not see anything. We spent all day looking for Elizabeth, but almost without realizing it, appeared the next day not remembering anything. That same day, finding the body, my name is the Mother Superior to come to his office. When I arrived, my parents were, and to my amazement I blamed of killing that man. But although it was not true, to not charge me to shut my dearest friend, Isabel.

4 .- Passages

• This appears to be the fate of some people and not for me to now object to the order of the universe precisely. There are birds that only serve to pollinate flowers that other animals eat to make milk. And some of this train gets teaching. It is possible that you do not know. I, poor me, I have always endeavored to go to mine, without trying to understand the machinery of the piece that maybe I'm like spitting at the pump that burst out after inflated wheels. But this philosophy, if it is any, I have not been successful.

• It's really funny how memory is the last survivor of the shipwreck of our existence, how to fence in our certainties descends to the gentle breeze of nostalgia.

• Do not say you, reader, is never.

5 .- Critical Review

This copy has not been much to my liking, as the writer has very clearly written. By this I mean that in reading the book, I had some difficulty on the part of the vocabulary. I chose this book because I like scary stories, but even so has not been much to my liking.

Bibliographic data

Author: Eduardo Mendoza.

Title: "The mystery of the haunted crypt.

Publisher: Seix Barral - Library of pocket.

City: Barcelona.

Publication Year: 1997.

No. of pages: 189.

Number of episodes: 19.

Gender Work

The author of this book belongs to the generation of democracy, the book itself belongs to the genre of detective fiction, because the whole play revolves around a puzzle to be solved a makeshift detective.

Main theme

The mystery of the haunted crypt is a farce and burlesque and satirical social morality that pretends to show a little state of Spain in the Transition and criticizing the excessive influence of the rich.

The entire play revolves around a puzzle to be solved a makeshift detective.

Argument

The protagonist is locked in an asylum. Then the Commissioner Flores and school nun Mother's Vincentian, remove him from the asylum in return he discovers that about girls who go away at school. Cundo out the asylum, goes in search of his sister Candida, for help, but this will not, and when he leaves he meets her boyfriend, Swede. Anyone who is found dead hours later in the boarding house where he stayed the protagonist.

The protagonist, begins to investigate and starts by Isabel Peraplana and black Mercedes. The first one disappeared six years ago but turned up not knowing where he had gone. This did not tell her anything, but when found to Mercedes, told him everything, since that night went to Elizabeth. And he began to tell, when Elizabeth was leaving, there was someone who opened the doors to reach the crypt, where stood a man with a dagger which they traversed. Mercedes then fainted, and remembered nothing of what happened next. The two expelled from school because she did go to live in the village where they were now the protagonist and Mercedes.

The star began to piece things together. One day he followed Mr. Peraplana, who had put a package in the trunk. She was the daughter of the dentist. At night the actor was introduced to school, skipping to the dogs in the garden. They began searching for the daughter of the dentist, and found it. We did sniffing ether, and carried to the crypt, but lost it inside the crypt. Inside, with the giddiness of the ether, the hero began to hallucinate. He saw the dead man wanted to charge, Swedish, and fainted. When he awoke, was the curator, the doctor who was in the asylum, Mercedes and nuns. Mercedes had called the commissioner had agreed as she and the protagonist. Then followed the commissioner until the end of the crypt, where they found a funicular, which rose and where they found a mansion. But they found nothing, since ten years ago there lived a family.

The mad mind that Mr. Peraplana still was involved in dirty business, and it was he who made the girls into the crypt and find the corpse, since the school had previously been his, and as he knew the crypt by where it was in and out easy, plus it safer, not that Mr. Peraplana have any key yet. The commissioner told the protagonist, that they could not show because they had no proof. Although it had left some loose ends to tie up what he had to leave. He returned to business as usual before leaving the asylum.

Venue of the action

Urban novel that takes place almost entirely in Barcelona but in any given time, the action takes place in a small town called "La Pobla de l'Scorpio.

Time

The story unfolds in a time interval between two or three days in 1977.

The action is written following a strict chronological order.

Narrator

I think it is written in first person and in the past.

8. Structure

The book contains 19 chapters dealing with each other and following a strict chronological order.

The structure is linear, has plantamiento, middle and end.

We could say that the first and second issue are the approach. From the third to the eighteenth, the knot. And the nineteenth, the denouement.

characters

Starring: "detective" black Mercedes.

Children: Candida, Swedish, Dr. Sugrañes Cagomelo Pisuerga Peraplana Isabel, Vicenzo Halfmann, Plutonium Soboba Square, Commissioner Flores.

The "detective" is a mental patient who lost his parents when very young. Has an older sister: Candida. He enjoys playing football and has a great gift for research.

Black Mercedes: it was a college student at the Mothers Lazarists San Gervasio. By witnessing the disappearance of his friend Isabel Peraplana and due to the influence of the father of his good friend, had to be exiled to a small town where he was a teacher. Physically very attractive.

Doctor Sugrañes: director of the madhouse where the protagonist is locked.

Commissioner Flowers: police using the protagonist as a confidant and it does drop from the asylum to assist in the investigation.

Candida sister of the protagonist. Prostitute with a deformed body.

The Swedish: going to see the sister of the protagonist. Then follows the protagonist to his pension and it supposedly drops dead. When he goes home to his sister's body is in it.

Isabel Peraplana: first girl disappeared six years earlier in our history.

Vicenzo Halfmann: Peraplana sold the building that he later sold to school and where disappearances occurred.

Plutonium Soboba Square: dentist and father of the second girl disappeared.

The Author

Eduardo Mendoza: Catalan writer born in Barcelona in 1943. Spent time in New York working as a translator at the UN. A big hit with his first novel, "The truth of the case Savolta" (1975). His other works include "The Mystery of the Haunted Crypt" (1979), "The Labyrinth of the Olives" (1982), "The City of Marvels" (1986), "Chronicle of the city of Barcelona from 1888 to 1929 "and" unprecedented Island "(1989). In 1990 he premiered his play "Restoration," the author first written in Catalan.

Assessing the work

This is a comic book character, as we see in many of the chapters. For example: when the protagonist defines Candida her older sister, or when the protagonist thinks it would with the nurse who takes the Pepsi-Cola, or when he steals a train ticket to a child ....

The author does not want us to know the transition and adorns comically, by otherwise hidden meaning.

In the story we can also see the innobleza of money: for example when the butler will give you a tip for bringing a wedding gift.

During the story there are many departures from subject. She called attention to an offender, or rather, a mental patient, has the ability to speak as the author shows us this as a literary language.

It is a readable novel, is a simple language and entertaining.

The theme chosen by the author I found very interesting because it makes the reader (or at least to me) create a level of intrigue to read the book.

personal opinion

The principle of this novel I liked it, because there was nothing interesting, but as the protagonist was investigating and solving the mystery, it was warmer, but the most intriguing of the novel for me was when the protagonist was inside the crypt. Although I did not understand very well. Since we do not know if what he said he was hallucinating or really happened.

I liked this more than other novels, it has been of mystery, intrigue, investigative and you could not overlook any detail, although the end of this I am disappointed because I expected her protagonist ended differently, as released and not returning to the asylum.