Waiting for the Flood, by Dolores Redondo: a Scottish movida

“I am a storm writer,” Dolores Redondo confesses at the end of the introduction to her new novel, Waiting for the flood. We could add: of downpour and cataclysm. The readers of his Baztan Trilogy, led by Inspector Amaia Salazar, know this, as do those who devoured The North Face of the Heart, which takes place in New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina. Water and its meanders are the natural element of this sailor’s daughter, born in La Coruña.

This time, she takes us to two port cities: the Scottish Glasgow and the Basque Bilbao. Leaving Amaia Salazar behind, Dolores Redondo has given birth to a new investigator, Noah Scott Sherrington. A 42-year-old bachelor, without children, who confesses: “I like idealism, I believe that deep down all the cops in the world have great ideals, even those who end up corrupt.” Special sign: he suffers from a serious heart defect.

We discovered it at the beginning of the 1980s, when the…