Breathing Through the Wound: A Novel

Breathing Through the Wound is a noir thriller by Spanish novelist Victor Del Arbol. The protagonist is a talented and renowned painter, Eduardo Quintana, whose wife and daughter was killed in a car accident fourteen years earlier. Quintana blames himself for the deaths and drowns his sorrow in drugs and alcohol. One day, Quintana is approached by a woman who asks Quintana to paint a portrait of her son’s killer. Quintana reluctantly agrees. As he listens to the woman’s story, he discovers her son was killed in similar circumstances as his wife and daughter and that the killer was able to escape punishment on a technicality and the ineptitude of the justice system. Quintana feels he is needed again and fully immerses himself in his new work. He is unwittingly drawn to Madrid’s criminal underbelly and its accompanying greed, vice, and violence.

The storyline is thick and convoluted with numerous twists and turns. Some of the best tropes of noir thrillers, such as characters overcome by guilt and blaming themselves as a result are all present in the book. The author wants the reader to commiserate with the characters, so he takes his time developing them. The book is written by a Spanish author and is set in Spain, so it was very interesting to read a crime novel in another part of the world.

The book is quite long but it is very well worth the read if you enjoy a good hard-hitting noir thriller.