La Ciudad Blanca by Eva García Sáenz de Urturi

It’s been long time since a mystery / thriller has blown me away like this. I’m so happy I bought all three books when I travelled to Spain recently as I wanted to pick up the next book immediately.

This is a mystery series following an inspector in the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. Each book follows the inspector and his partner in criminal investigations, getting to the bottoms of serial killers following obscure rituals.

While following Unai (also known as Kraken) solve mystery after mystery, we learn a lot about him, his family and friend and one can’t help but care and feel for this character. Have I mentioned he’s brilliant at solving mysteries? Though he does go off the determined investigation route pretty often, you can’t help but wonder what he’s going to do next.

The ritual aspect of each murder was very interesting and the reader can closely follow how Unai untangles what’s happening.

I do think certain scenes could’ve been shorter and still have the same effect, the books are rather on the long side with each one being over 450 pages. My favorite was the second book, the mystery had me hooked and I was already familiar with the world and characters. The third one was the one I liked least for reasons I won’t include here as I want to keep this review spoiler free.

Overall rating – 4 stars.

I’m looking forward to reading more Urturi books.

Leave your thriller / mystery book recommendations in the comments.