{"product_id":"the-skating-rink-0811217132","title":"The Skating Rink","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0811217132\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e Bola\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCondition:\u003c\/strong\u003e New\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe is by far the most exciting writer to come from South of the Rio Grande in a long time. -Ilan Stavans, Los Angeles Times Set in the seaside town of Z, on the Costa Brava, north of Barcelona, The Skating Rink oscillates between two poles: a camp ground and a ruined mansion, the Palacio Benvingut. The story, told by three male narrators, revolves around a beautiful figure skating champion, Nuria Martí. When she is suddenly dropped from the Olympic team, a pompous but besotted civil servant secretly builds a skating rink in the ruined Palacio Benvingut, using public funds. But Nuria has affairs, provokes jealousy, and the skating rink becomes a crime scene. A mysterious pair of women, an ex-opera singer and a taciturn girl often armed with a knife, turn up as well.A complex book, The Skating Rinks short chapters are skillfully broken off with questions to maintain the narrative tension: Who was murdered? Who was the murderer? Will the murderer be caught? All of these questions are answered, and yet The Skating Rink is not fundamentally a crime novel, or not exclusively; its also about political corruption, sex, the experience of immigration, and frustrated passion. And its an atmospheric chronicle of one summer season in a seaside town, with its vacationers, its drifters, its businessmen, bureaucrats and social workers.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mia Karts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51974583124256,"sku":"NEW0811217132","price":25.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0980\/7426\/3840\/files\/61vvdKE6pZL._SL1200_QL70.jpg?v=1785799900","url":"https:\/\/miakarts.com\/products\/the-skating-rink-0811217132","provider":"Miakarts Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}