Benn Northover

Inspector Amaia Salazar returns to the Baztán's valley for a new case, and this time even her loved ones won't be safe. Pamplona (autonomous community of Navarra's capital; north to Spain). One year after Basajaun's crimes, nine-months pregnant Inspector Amaia Salazar is on the city court waiting for the trial of Jason Medina, who is accused to raping, mutilating, and murdering her stepdaughter Márquez. But just before the trial, Medina is found in the court's bathroom, dead from suicide, his wrists cut, and a note in his jeans pocket: "Tarttalo." Just then Amaia's water breaks and she gives birth to her son Ibai, and she and her sculptor and gallery-artist husband James Westford celebrate. Reinstated to active service four months later, Amaia is called by her superior to give two different cases: Monseñor Landero and Padre Sarasola requested Amaia specifically to investigate with secrecy the profanation of a little church where a baby's amputated arm was found on the altar; and a man incarcerated in Logroño (autonomous community of La Rioja's capital) by his wife's killing has sent her a note revealing where is his wife's corpse with "Tarttalo" in the message, committing suicide after giving the note to a prison guard. Finding the corpse in Elizondo's surroundings, Amaia takes Ibai back to her birth town where she meets again with tarot-card-caster Aunt Engrasi, and her older sisters Flora and Rosaura, who are happy to meet their new nephew, Discovering that the two women killed were amputated of their right arm after the crime, it matches with the church's profanation, after to learn that all arms were cut with the same pattern and weapon. Finding that it's related to the Agotes, a tribe pursued in the Middle Ages by the Spanish Inquisition for their pagan beliefs and rites, and that Tarttalo is the name of an ancient mythical Christian-eating giant, Amaia asks help by video-conference to her former mentor and FBI's agent Aloisius Dupree, at the same time Aunt Engrasi uses tarot to predict what could happen and judge Javier Markina follows with the investigation attentively. This causes a coolness in James and Amaia's relationship although he had moved to Elizondo to be closer to his wife and son. But the case takes a dramatic turn: an amputated baby's arm is revealed to be Amaia's twin sister she never knew existed, and Amaia's mother Rosario, secluded in a mental hospital ever since she tried to kill Amaia at birth, has killed a male nurse, writing "Tarttalo" in blood under the bed, causing re-apparition of the enigmatic psychiatrist Padre Saralosa, interested in Rosario and convincing Amaia to move Rosario to the university hospital he heads. Forced to look into her family's past, Amaia will not only discover the relationship between her mother and a sect dedicated to a pagan cult that performed human sacrifices, abut also that all of the crimes have a much too personal connection to her. While Elizondo is in danger of an incoming flood, Amaia must solve the case and identify the killer before any of her dearest loved ones becomes the next victim. —Chockys

A female inspector confronts a serial killer while dealing with the ghosts of her past. Amaia Salazar, a police inspector in Pamplona (capital city of Navarra; north to Spain), is sent by her superior to investigate a murder due to her personal relation with the place of the corpse. The case concerns a teenage girl whose naked body is found stripped of her high heeled shoes and lying down at the side of the Baztán river close to little town of Elizondo, Amaia's birthplace, a rainy village surrounded by forests and mounts located in the middle of Baztán's valley, full of local myths and ancient superstitions. Her marriage to James Westford, an American sculptor and artist gallery, is falling apart due to her desire for a child, and despite she never wanted back to her family home, Amaia Salazar is forced to face the past and reconnect with her lovely and tarot's card caster Aunt Engrasi, and too with her older sisters Flora and Rosaura. Helped by Engrasi and her tarot's readings as well as Amaia's former mentor and FBI's agent Aloisius Dupree by video-conference looking for new clues and other point of view to find the killer, Amaia's instinct for criminal cases will be challenged according to more naked bodies of teenage girls are found in the forest, where an ancient myth says that it's protected by a giant supernatural creature named Basajaun, at the same time that she's stalked by her child memories. Trying to solve the case and discover the identity of the killer, Amaia must not only confront her distant and troubled relation with her sisters and her own childhood trauma from the several abuses of her demented mother, who tried to kill her at child, but also the each time bigger suspicion that perhaps the serial killer is someone who is too much close to her and her family, putting all of them in serious danger. —Chockys After the accidental discovery of a young murdered girl on the banks of a narrow stream deep into the impregnable forests of Elizondo, Amaia Salazar, the female inspector who leads the investigation, returns hesitantly to her hometown where she swore never to return. Inevitably, as Amaia explores a seemingly endless string of horrific ritualistic killings which enmesh the case with the mythical Basque lore, at the same time, her secret and still unhealed wounds of the past open, demanding resolution. Could the answer be hiding in the heart of the gloomy and thick woods? —Nick Riganas