The Woman Who Rang for the Dead

About this book

Every night in Zarzuela de la Peña, a woman walks the dark streets ringing a small bell and praying for the souls of the dead. One October dawn she is found kneeling at a stone cross, her mouth sealed with beeswax, a child's name folded in her fist: Tomás Cordero, missing since 1996. Lieutenant Casilda Mayoral of the Guardia Civil knows the name before anyone reads it to her. She was fifteen the summer Tomás disappeared, and it was her testimony that sent her own father to prison for it. The village has called her the bad daughter ever since. Her mother has not spoken to her in eight years. Now Casilda must return to a place that closes its shutters when she passes, to find a killer who is punishing silence one sealed mouth at a time, and who seems to be writing, night after night, directly to her.