Synopses & Reviews
Detective Mario Conde returns to solve a mystery spanning centuries of occult history
Detective Mario Conde is facing his sixtieth birthday. What does he have to show for his decades on the planet? A failing body, a slower mind, and a decrepit country, in which both the ideals and the failures of the Cuban Revolution are being swept away in favor of a new and newly cosmopolitan worship of money.
Rescue comes in the form of a new case: an old Marxist turned flamboyant practitioner of Santería appears on the scene to engage Conde to track down a stolen statue of the Virgen de Regla — a black Madonna. This sets Conde on a quest that spans twenty-first-century Havana as well as the distant past, as he delves as far back as the Crusades in an attempt to uncover the true provenance of the statue.
Through vignettes from the life of a Catalan peasant named Antoni Barral, who appears throughout history in different guises — as a shepherd during the Spanish Civil War, as a vassal to a feudal lord — we trace the Madonna to present-day Cuba. With Barral serving as Conde's alter ego, unstuck in time, and Conde serving as the author's, we are treated to a panorama of history and reminded of the impossibility of always remaining on its sidelines, no matter how obscure we may think our place in the action.
Equal parts The Name of the Rose and The Maltese Falcon, The Transparency of Time cements Leonardo Padura's position as a preeminent literary crime writer of our time.
Review
"An elegant blend of mystery and sociology by one of Cuba's most accomplished writers." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Dressed in the grungy trappings of a crime drama, this literary tour-de-force from Padura offers a colorful cultural history of Cuba and the island's historical contact with Europe that helped to shape its people's religious beliefs... Padura's novel will appeal equally to genre fans and lovers of literary thrillers." Publishers Weekly (starred review)
About the Author
Leonardo Padura was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1955. The author of The Man Who Loved Dogs and Heretics, his genre-bending literary crime novels featuring the detective Mario Conde have been widely translated and formed the basis for the 2016 Netflix miniseries Four Seasons in Havana.
Anna Kushner was born in Philadelphia and first traveled to Cuba in 1999. She has translated the novels of Guillermo Rosales, Norberto Fuentes, Gonçalo M. Tavares, and Leonardo Padura.