This novel is many things (even many novels, perhaps) but, at least at a superficial level, it could be described as a mystery story featuring two investigators.

The first of the novel’s two “detectives” is the narrator, Amanda. Now that she is, herself, the mother a toddler, Amanda decides to trace the whereabouts of her mother, who left home when Amanda was a young girl. Amanda's intention is to confront her about her family’s past. In particular, she is intrigued by the mysterious figure of her aunt Catherine, also known as Cathy, Kitty or “K. Penza”, the author of a series of detective novels of the 70s and 80s about the novel’s “second” investigator – Inspector Castillo. The elusive Cathy, Emma’s twin, was killed in a bomb attack in the political turmoil eighties and her last novel was completed and published by Emma. The author’s death was passed off as accidental, but was likely a result of Cathy venturing into politically sensitive territory in her Castillo novels. Amanda is shocked to learn from her mother that Emma avenged the assassination by killing two men – the presumed killer and Cathy’s creation, Castillo.

"Castillo" is a meta-detective-story which indulges in some intriguing postmodern playfulness. The present-day narrative, featuring Amanda’s search for the truth about her family, alternates with chapters from the fictional Castillo novels. These segments include intentional clichés gleaned from the detective and the police procedural genres and contain nods to established crime authors. In one of the meta-fictional references in the novel, a disappointed reader writes a letter to Penza complaining that her stories do not respect Father Knox’s Ten Commandments for the writing of crime fiction. Ronald Knox, a writer from the Golden Age of detective fiction, devised a set of rules for aspiring authors of mystery stories. The rules essentially consider a crime novel as a “puzzle” in which the reader should be given a fair opportunity to solve. Classic mystery fiction is a comfort read precisely because whatever heinous crimes lie at the heart of a book, the conundrum is solved at the end, the perpetrator apprehended and the world returned to safe mode.

Not so "Castillo". Amanda’s questions are never clearly answered. The novel has a recurrent theme of empty, or nearly-empty, houses – Amanda’s after the death of her father, Emma’s, Cathy’s, that of Cathy’s erstwhile friend/lover Anne. Amanda seeks answers from them, but they yield their secrets begrudgingly, if at all.

Similarly, the Castillo chapters are like tantalising excerpts from longer novels, setting out the mystery but never leading us to the satisfying conclusion which we would expect from a traditional crime novel – certainly not from one respecting Father Knox’s commandments.

"Castillo" is a multi-layered novel, and one of its most important strands is a “political” one. As the book progresses, the Castillo segments become darker and darker, and the final excerpt (from Penza’s meta-fictional swansong The Brothers Tonna) portrays a harrowing scene of police brutality that is very clearly based on a notorious real-life episode of the eighties. Maltese recent history is still very divisive. Azzopardi suggests that one way of confronting an uncomfortable past is through fiction. At the same time, the lack of a clear “closure” to the Castillo series (the published version not reflecting Kitty’s manuscript) expresses pessimism about the possibility of older generations ever managing to come to terms with the country’s past. If there is any hope it is in the younger generations represented by Amanda’s daughter Klarissa – untainted by the sins of the past, they can (possibly?) build a brighter future.

I found this to be an intriguing and complex novel which, through a deft sleight of hand, manages to deliver the thrills of a traditional mystery story whilst breaking the basic rules of the genre.

For a fuller review, head to:

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2021/07/castillo-by-clare-azzopardi.html ( )

This novel is many things (even many novels, perhaps) but, at least at a superficial level, it could be described as a mystery story featuring two investigators.

The first of the novel’s two “detectives” is the narrator, Amanda. Now that she is, herself, the mother a toddler, Amanda decides to trace the whereabouts of her mother, who left home when Amanda was a young girl. Amanda's intention is to confront her about her family’s past. In particular, she is intrigued by the mysterious figure of her aunt Catherine, also known as Cathy, Kitty or “K. Penza”, the author of a series of detective novels of the 70s and 80s about the novel’s “second” investigator – Inspector Castillo. The elusive Cathy, Emma’s twin, was killed in a bomb attack in the political turmoil eighties and her last novel was completed and published by Emma. The author’s death was passed off as accidental, but was likely a result of Cathy venturing into politically sensitive territory in her Castillo novels. Amanda is shocked to learn from her mother that Emma avenged the assassination by killing two men – the presumed killer and Cathy’s creation, Castillo.

"Castillo" is a meta-detective-story which indulges in some intriguing postmodern playfulness. The present-day narrative, featuring Amanda’s search for the truth about her family, alternates with chapters from the fictional Castillo novels. These segments include intentional clichés gleaned from the detective and the police procedural genres and contain nods to established crime authors. In one of the meta-fictional references in the novel, a disappointed reader writes a letter to Penza complaining that her stories do not respect Father Knox’s Ten Commandments for the writing of crime fiction. Ronald Knox, a writer from the Golden Age of detective fiction, devised a set of rules for aspiring authors of mystery stories. The rules essentially consider a crime novel as a “puzzle” in which the reader should be given a fair opportunity to solve. Classic mystery fiction is a comfort read precisely because whatever heinous crimes lie at the heart of a book, the conundrum is solved at the end, the perpetrator apprehended and the world returned to safe mode.

Not so "Castillo". Amanda’s questions are never clearly answered. The novel has a recurrent theme of empty, or nearly-empty, houses – Amanda’s after the death of her father, Emma’s, Cathy’s, that of Cathy’s erstwhile friend/lover Anne. Amanda seeks answers from them, but they yield their secrets begrudgingly, if at all.

Similarly, the Castillo chapters are like tantalising excerpts from longer novels, setting out the mystery but never leading us to the satisfying conclusion which we would expect from a traditional crime novel – certainly not from one respecting Father Knox’s commandments.

"Castillo" is a multi-layered novel, and one of its most important strands is a “political” one. As the book progresses, the Castillo segments become darker and darker, and the final excerpt (from Penza’s meta-fictional swansong The Brothers Tonna) portrays a harrowing scene of police brutality that is very clearly based on a notorious real-life episode of the eighties. Maltese recent history is still very divisive. Azzopardi suggests that one way of confronting an uncomfortable past is through fiction. At the same time, the lack of a clear “closure” to the Castillo series (the published version not reflecting Kitty’s manuscript) expresses pessimism about the possibility of older generations ever managing to come to terms with the country’s past. If there is any hope it is in the younger generations represented by Amanda’s daughter Klarissa – untainted by the sins of the past, they can (possibly?) build a brighter future.

I found this to be an intriguing and complex novel which, through a deft sleight of hand, manages to deliver the thrills of a traditional mystery story whilst breaking the basic rules of the genre.

For a fuller review, head to:

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2021/07/castillo-by-clare-azzopardi.html ( )