The Woman in the River, La mujer del río, Paula Ilabaca, crimen, detectives, mujeres, investigación, misterio, true crime, detectives, women, investigation, mystery

-You went to the girl’s house again.
-Her name is Amparo. Robert, she needs me, she hasn’t regained her speech yet. We’ve made progress, but…
-Merche, you’re not a psychologist. That’s enough.
Roberto Cáceres tried to get angry with Mercedes Torrealba, but he couldn’t; he couldn’t get angry with his second in command. She looked at him, uninterested; all her cases were in order and her drawer was empty. She didn’t understand this fixation of Roberto, head of the Homicide Squad and a friend of hers, with what she might do in her working hours. Besides, she didn’t go straight to the girl’s home. She would stop by to say hello when she was at a crime scene near her neighbourhood, when instead of taking the road, she would ask the driver of the police vehicle to take another road that would take them closer to Amparo’s house. He wouldn’t forbid her to show solidarity. She closed her eyes tightly and the line above her eyelids lengthened and crinkled a little, as if they were undulating movements.

In the mid-1980s, a scout patrol finds a bag of rubbish on the bank of the city’s river. When they open it, the most horrifying horror emerges.
Mercedes Torrealba, a detective from the homicide squad of the Investigative Police, is left in charge of the case and will have to face herself, her shadows and lights, until she discovers the truth behind the dreadful crime.
A novel based on true events that reads like the most addictive True Crime and that immerses us in the life of a policewoman trapped in a world of men, who only hinder and entangle her already complex work.

Key points

• An active protagonist who does not play the role of the all-round, unbreakable woman, but who has her emotions on the surface.
• A profoundly feminine detective story in a male-dominated environment.

Paula Ilabaca

2023 – PEN Award 2023 for Best Work Translated into English for “La Perla Suelta”
2015 – Pablo Neruda Award
2014 – Juegos Florales Award, by the City Council of Santiago for “La Regla De Los Nueve”
2010 – Critics of Literary Press Award in Chile, UDP