The Return by Victoria Hislop

Most young people in this country think of Spain in terms of the Costas, as they head off for Sun,Sea and Sand (and perhaps the other S) on cheap flights, but there is so much more to Spain than that. Even close to the Costa del Sol is Granada with the Alhambra built by the Moors during their occupation of Andalusia , which they called El Andalus. This is the most beautiful and awe-inspiring building with intricate carving. They probably don't even head inland to see the mountains behind the coast.

And what about Madrid, the capital of Spain? How many go there?

Or Salamanca, which is home to the oldest university in Spain and one of the oldest in Europe, founded in 1218?

The Return tells part of Spain's history using a family in Granada to help illustrate it.

This is a very dark part of Spain's history - the Spanish Civil War, fought in the late 1930s before the Second World War covering the successful attempt by the fascist General Franco to overthrow the government. The atrocities were many. The Republicans, many communist, were hopelessly outgunned and out manned.

My faithful reader knows that I enjoy reading detective stories, particularly those from the rest of Europe. They tend to be faithful to the tradition of detective stories, but are flavoured with the setting and history of the country in which they are set.

I can refer here to a series of books by Manuel Vasquez Montalban featuring the private detective Pepe Carvalho. He lives in Barcelona and the memories of the Civil War are still there. the Chief of Police was (and is, no doubt) a fascist and Carvalho was (and is) a communist. During the Civil War, the man now Chief of Police held a similar role and carried out torture on his prisoners, including Carvalho. Yet now they must rub along together.

This was my first real glimpse into the Civil War, as a peripheral part of the detective series, so it was enlightening to read more. Victoria Hislop has done her research and she does manage to make the past real. Of particular note was her overage of Guernica, a name that will go down in history as a town that was bombed out of existence from the air by the fascists, although Franco tried to deny it. There was a war correspondent on site who saw for himself and reported it back to Britain from where it was syndicated round the world.

Worth a read.