Some called him Pharaoh behind his back, others said he was a half-crazy old aristocrat. But when they find the body of Lloyd Lancaster lifeless with a curved sword stuck in his chest and an Egyptian tarot card in his hand, all his relatives gather behind the walls of his old mansion grieved by his loss. Or that's what they say.

Time is running and people are talking. Some say it is an ancient spell, that the Lancaster blood is cursed; Others believe it is just someone in the family hoping to get a good pinch out of their will: perhaps his melancholic wife, perhaps his rebellious and promiscuous son, or perhaps the old matriarch, who never approved of his pagan beliefs.

Winter has fallen relentlessly on Ashwood, a small town near Inverness, lost in the Scottish Highlands. It's Friday, so the Noisy Trumpet is packed, brimming with smelly old men and weather-beaten fishermen who take refuge from the blizzard to drink and listen to some music. And of course, there is also her. Sitting at the piano, Vivien Green runs her nimble fingers over the keys to the rhythm of jazz. The years have passed ruthlessly for both of them, but Arthur McLendon, a recently retired police officer, comes looking for her one last time. They just commissioned him a new case. One that does not seem easy at all.

The revelry continues and the noise fills the atmosphere. Although it is enough to move away a little to perceive the roar of the wind against the windows, the sound of the snowflakes falling on the roofs and the howling of the solitary dog. The silence. The sound of death.

Lazos de sangre is the first novel by Adrià Guxens.

​