Above the Rain

About the book

In the latest novel from a master of European crime fiction, past, present, and future collide on a breathtaking journey from 1950s Morocco to modern-day Spain and Sweden.

Miguel and Helena meet at a nursing home in Tarifa, at an age when they believe they have lived it all already. Distanced from their children, they feel they are no longer needed. The sudden suicide of one of the other residents opens their eyes. They don’t want to spend their last days longing for supposedly better times, so together they decide to undertake the journey of their lives and confront the darkness in their pasts.

Meanwhile, in the distant Swedish city of Malmö, the young Yasmina, a child of Moroccan immigrants who dreams of being a singer, lives trapped between her authoritarian grandfather and her contemptuous mother, who is ashamed of Yasmina because she works for a Swede with a murky reputation. And she’s having a secret affair with the Deputy Commissioner of the Swedish police, an older, influential man.

As Yasmina is drawn deeper into Malmö’s criminal underworld and Miguel and Helena approach the end of their feverish road trip, Víctor del Árbol masterfully reconstructs the history of violence that links their seemingly disparate lives.

Praise for this book:

"Víctor del Árbol's Above the Rain is a heartrending tour de force about mortality and chance and learning to live with ghosts. Rich with noir atmosphere, the book begins in 1950s Morocco and then brings us to contemporary Spain and Sweden. A sprawling ensemble cast drives the narrative, making for an epic unknotting of voices and experiences. It's expertly plotted, suspenseful, and immersive. Lisa Dillman's translation is crisp and elegant. Just extraordinary." - William Boyle

"Haunting and provocative, Above the Rain is a novel of devastating, heartbreaking beauty. It demands your bravery, fires your imagination, and challenges your heart and soul. The rewards are rich. I will carry Miguel and Helena with me for a very long time." - Bill Loehfelm

"A dark, vividly descriptive tale of two complicated people whose troubled pasts motivate a road trip full of winding turns, unexpected plot twists, and retribution. Adeptly plotted, an examination of our own pasts, of what we cannot change about them, and what we do with the time we have left." - John McMahon

"Above the Rain is an exceptional novel about the present's inability to deny the past, a clear-eyed examination of the cultural clashes in modern Europe. It's also a novel about love, the different kinds thereof and how they offer their own various sorts of healing and redemption." - Scott Phillips

"A sweeping and devastating historical novel, full of suspense, Del Árbol's Above the Rain is a masterclass in the way that trauma is reinforced and repeated throughout generations, with deadly consequences. In Del Árbol's noir-inflected masterpiece, the past is always present, the political is always personal, and love, however fleeting, is the only redeeming grace. I loved every moment of it." - Halley Sutton