The light of the setting sun, refracted through the windowpane, painted the huge canvas with a slight reddish patina; as if it had already begun, even before taking its final form, to bleed. And suddenly everything made sense. "It will be called Guernica," said Picasso.
May 1937. The civil war continues its bloody course in Spain, while Paris prepares to host the International Exhibition. But even far from the battlefields, battles are fought in the shadows. A double mission brings Lorenzo Falcó to Paris with the aim of ensuring, by any means necessary, that the Guernica painting by Pablo Picasso never reaches the International Exhibition, where the Republic seeks to garner international support.
Although the winds of the new war that will devastate the continent are already being felt in Europe, cheerful music continues to play and art, commerce, and the pursuit of the good life occupy intellectuals, exiles, and activists alike. Accustomed to danger and extreme situations, Falcó must this time confront a world where the struggle of ideas seeks to prevail over action. A world that is foreign to him and against which he will attempt to apply his own methods.
Arturo Pérez-Reverte crafts a masterful plot in Sabotage that sweeps the reader away to the last page, completing the novel trilogy featuring one of his most charming literary heroes, Lorenzo Falcó.