For a Sack of Bones

Set in Franco Spain in 1949, Barcelona novelist and playwright Baulenas's revenge tale of Legionnaire Sgt. Genís Aleu is drenched in desolation, fear and cruelty. After his father, Juan, enlisted to fight Franco, Genís was raised in a religious charity ward. Years later, former POW Juan, near death, extracts a grim, quixotic promise from Genís. He is to recover Juan's friend's remains from the POW camp and give them “a decent burial” in Barcelona. After eight years in Franco's celebrated Spanish Foreign Legion, Genís travels to the POW camp turned military base to fulfill his promise. Despite his professed loyalty, Genís actually seethes with a hatred for Franco that's fueled by his obsession to avenge his father. The bleak political struggles roiling the country bring to mind Darkness at Noon , while the soldiers' banter and ribald humor is of the Hemingway school. And though Genís's zealous devotion to his dead father (and the self-destructive lengths he goes to in following through on his promise) sometimes confounds, the narrative overall is brisk, tense and satisfyingly complex. (July)