The Invisible City

At the start of this absorbing literary mystery, Rosales’s first novel to be translated into English, Barcelona art gallery owner Emili Rossell receives an 18th-century Italian manuscript titled Memoirs of the Invisible City by an architect named Andrea Roselli. The manuscript concerns the efforts of Charles III, the Spanish king who reigned from 1759 to 1788, to construct a new capital on the coast south of Barcelona, where by chance Emili grew up. Excerpts from Andrea’s memoirs reveal that for reasons unknown the king’s scheme was abandoned after completion of only a few building projects. Political intrigues and contraband art figure in both past and present. Andrea possesses something that could ruin his career as royal architect, while Emili is on the watch for a lost Tiepolo. The graceful, flowing prose of the translation well suits the intricate plot and vivid main characters. (June)