The Hidden Assassins
by Robert Wilson
ISBN: 9780156032568

As Inspector Jefe Javier Falc--n investigates the case of a faceless, mutilated corpse, the beautiful city of Seville is rocked by a massive explosion. The discovery of a mosque in the basement of a devastated apartment building confirms everybody's fears of terrorism. Panic sweeps the city and the region goes on red alert. As more bodies are dragged from the rubble, the media interest and political pressure intensify and Falc--n suspects that all is not what it appears to be. Just as he comes close to cracking the conspiracy, he makes the most terrifying discovery of all and the race is on to prevent a catastrophe far beyond Spain's borders.

Hey y'all - hope you don't mind me inserting another mystery suggestion in here - by Greg Iles - whom we've read before in the club - not taking anything away from this week's mystery in the club, but I have just begun this book and sounds interesting to me so thought I'd pass it along with a beginning excerpt -
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"When does murder begin?

With the pull of a trigger? With the formation of a motive? Or does it begin long before, when a child swallows more pain than love and is forever changed?

Perhaps it doesn't matter.

Or perhaps it matters more than everything else.

We judge and punish based on facts, but facts are not truth. Facts are like a buried skeleton uncovered long after death. Truth is fluid. Truth is alive. To know the truth requires understanding, the most difficult human art. It requires seeing all things at once, forward and backward, the way God sees.

Forward and backward...

So we begin in the middle, with a telephone ringing in a dark bedroom on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, Louisiana. There's a woman lying on the bed, mouth open in the mindless gape of sleep. She seems not to hear the phone. Then suddenly the harsh ring breaks through, like defibrillator paddles shocking a comatose patient. The woman's hand shoots from beneath the covers, groping for the phone, not finding it. She gasps and rises onto one elbow. Then she groans and picks up the receiver from the bedside table."

I am intrigued by how neatly the opening conversation sets characters, motives and mood. Superb!!