Did he fall or was he pushed? That was the question confronting Superintendent Luis Bernal of the Spanish police when, on Palm Sunday, a young journalist fell to his death from his top-floor flat in Madrid.

Inspector Bernal of the Spanish police undertakes to uncover a complex conspiracy that threatens to undo the country's very government

Spain's Inspector Bernal searches for a killer who leaves the bodies of his victims, all young women, on Madrid's underground metro trains

When fishermen in Cadiz Bay catch the body of a dead frogman in their nets, it raises far more questions than answers, not the least how did the unidentified diver die? Is it possible he was shot with a laser-beam and if he was, who would have such a top-secret weapon? When a sergeant of the Marine division of the Civil Guard is found hanged from a coastal jetty, it seems that Cadiz – and its surrounding Spanish and American naval bases – could be under attack. Fortunately, the unflappable Superintendent Luis Bernal is in Cadiz on very personal business (which involves a balancing act between his religious zealot of a wife and his pregnant mistress) and is ordered to take command of the situation. David Serafin’s crime novels, with their intricate plots, vivid descriptions of Spanish life and meticulous accounts of police procedures have endeared him to readers not only in Britain and America, but also in Spain – a rare compliment to a foreign author. The early Bernal novels, set during ‘The Transition’ from the death of General Franco to the establishment of parliamentary democracy (1975-1982), have recently been republished in new Spanish editions

Superintendent Bernal, a police officer in the Spanish Canary Islands searches desperately for his kidnapped pregnant mistress, Consuelo, while investigating a deadly plot against the forthcoming presidential visit

Sent to Torremolinos as part of an antiterrorist unit out to stop a threatened Basque bombing spree, Madrid detective Luis Bernal finds himself up against a vicious psychopath responsible for the disappearance of several teenage tourists