Book Review: Shadow of the Rock by Thomas Mogford

Shadow of the Rock by Thomas Mogford is the first book in a series starring tax attorney and amateur detective Spike Sanguinetti.

It’s a humid summer night in Gibraltar when lawyer Spike Sanguinetti finds Solomon Hassan, an old school friend, waiting on his doorstep. Accused of murdering a Spanish girl in Tangier, Solomon swears his innocence. He has managed to skip across the straits, but the Moroccan authorities demand his return.

Spike travels to Tangier in the hope of delaying the extradition. Solomon's boss, Nadeer-the founder of a renewable-energy company called Dunetech that is on the verge of financing an enormous solar-powered site in the Sahara-suggests that if Spike can delay Solomon's trial until after the deal signs, he will persuade the governor of Tangier to bury the extradition demand. Complicating this offer, Spike encounters a Bedouin girl who insists that Dunetech is engaged in a nefarious scheme linked to the disappearance of her father. As Spike uncovers the truth, he finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a world of secrets, corruption, and murderous lies.

First I’d like to give you an advice: Don’t start reading this book late at night. I did and I had to pay the price; that is, stay awake until early morning when I finally finished it.

I guess that I was surprised in a way that a thing like this would happen to me with a book that’s not a fast-paced thriller, full of twists and turns, car-chases, explosions and other cinematic elements. On the other hand though it has all the other qualities that make a crime novel stand out: mystery, exciting settings and a hero who, well, at first doesn’t seem to want to be a hero.

Spike considers his homeland, The Rock, as Gibraltar is widely known, as one of the best, if not the best place in the world. Everything looks simple there. Everybody seems to know everybody else, the way of life is kind of serene but mostly cosmopolitan, and nothing of much interest, or rather exciting I should say – apart when it come to the world of business – seems to happen.

He knows this little abode at the edge of the sea inside out and he really loves the Old Town and its history:

Ahead rose the Moorish Castle, dominated by the Tower of Homage, built by the Moors when they’d conquered Gibraltar in AD 711. They’d held it until the reconquest, seven centuries later, and their leader’s name Jebel Tariq – Mountain of Tariq – has stuck, morphing over time to Gibraltar. Beneath the stone battlements ran dark, sweaty stains where the Moors had poured boiling pitch onto besieged Spaniards. Spike stared up at them, marveling as ever at their longevity, as he came into Upper Castle Gully. Then he saw Jessica Navarro standing by her Royal Gibraltar Police van.

Jessica is one of his closest friends, along with his partner at the law firm, Peter Galliano, a lover of good life. There seems to be some kind of attraction between Spike and Jessica, but that doesn’t even morph into words. It’s as if they know that what they have is what there’s ever going to be.

One of the most unusual things in this novel is that cops and lawyers seem to get along very well. They talk a lot, they drink beers together and they help each other out.

For instance when Spike advices his old friend and now client, Solomon Hassan, to surrender to the police in Gibraltar, he knows that he’s going to be in good hands. Actually the only one who verbally abuses him is Spike himself in order to make certain that he is innocent.

And even when he travels to Tangier to investigate the crime in question he’s still in close contact with the police through his colleague, Galliano, who keeps him up to date.

 Of course he doesn’t expect the same kind of co-operation from the Moroccan authorities. If he wants to have something done he has to do it himself. And thus starts the adventure, an adventure that would make the cynic in him come to life, especially as he wanders the streets of the mythical city: “He tried a different route down, passing an American woman of a certain age arm in arm with a handsome Moroccan youth. The irresistible pheromones of the green card.”

Spike finds Tangier attractive and kind of repulsive at the same time. As he walks the streets, talks to the people, pays bribes, and moves on from place to place, he feels good there, but at the same time he knows that it’s a place where he could never live. It’s not the night life that mostly captures his imagination, it’s not the bazaars or even the women (at first); it’s the beach:

The sand felt warm between Spike’s toes. Seeing a discarded syringe ahead, he dropped his espadrilles to the ground and kicked them back on. The breadth of the beach had been a surprise, more than half a kilometer wide, continuing all along the inlet of the bay, port to the left, hills to the right, bright wasps’-nest city rising behind.

Waves lapped at Spike’s feet, propelled by their cross-mix of currents. A shelf of sand rose at the tidemark: if someone had wanted to sit by the sea they could lean on the sandbank and be out of sight of anyone walking behind. Washed up against it was a melee of debris: punctured lilo, toothbrush, a plastic doll with a melted face.

Shadow of the Rock is a character driven novel. Spike may be in the epicenter of things, but there’s a colorful cast of secondary characters that enrich the story: headstrong and dismissive inspector Eldrassi, Marouane, the bar owner who sure likes his bribes, Jean-Baptiste, Spike’s hotel neighbor who’s willing to offer a helping hand, some goons and a rich industrialist, Zahra, the girl who knows too much and has her own agenda, and his receptionist at the hotel, an avid reader who answers almost every question with a quote.

As far as debuts go this couldn’t have been any better. The author has taken full advantage of his material in order to create an engrossing tale that captures the reader’s heart. I, for one, look forward to the future adventures of Mr. Spike Sanguinetti.