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Find the lady: Tomás Nevinson, by Javier Marías, reviewed

A merciless ETA terrorist is in hiding in Spain – but which of three seemingly innocent women is she?

1 April 2023

9:00 AM

1 April 2023

9:00 AM

Tomás Nevinson Javier Marías, translated by Margaret Jull Costa

Hamish Hamilton, pp.656, 22

The plot sounds like an airport thriller – or a Netflix mini-series pitch. In a proud and staid riverside town in north-west Spain, where ‘each individual played the role assigned to him’, live three women. One is a merciless terrorist killer: Magdalena Orúe, or Maddy O’Dea, half-Spanish, half-Northern Irish, a warrior on long-term loan from the IRA to the Basque separatists of ETA, but now either retired from the armed struggle or quietly brewing fresh mayhem.

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