“Man Alone is a wonderful book. It has it all. Presented as a crime thriller, Atxaga's novel is much more than that: a rich, leisurely, poetic read.” - The Independent
“The story is on the face of it linear, but it is everything that has gone before, and what will happen after, that enriches the plot and elevates the novel beyond the bounds of a conventional thriller.” - Times Literary Supplement
“Seductive language, subtle sensibility, a perfectly oiled plot.... All these elements make this novel, captivating and almost perfect in its development, an ambitious and risky exercise like few others we have the opportunity to tackle in these times.” - Ramón Sánchez Lizarralde, El Mundo
“An indispensable novel.” - Jordi Gracia, El Periódico de Catalunya
“A story with the seal of the sensitive chronicler, of his unmistakable signs of identity: impeccable prose, a magnificent skill to slide in a perfectly finished plot images nourished in a recognizable reality, and the landscape, now longed for, of the Basque Country.” - Pilar Castro, ABC
Years back, before his spell in prison, before he bought the hotel outside Barcelona, Carlos had been a hunted man, activist in ETA, the Basque Independence Movement, and involved in clandestinity and violence for the good of the Cause. So what is a responsible hotelier doing back once more in the old game?
The fact is, after another ETA bomb outrage, the police are out in force hunting for two escaped gunmen, a man and a woman, and Carlos has accepted to hide them in his hotel.
This is while the 1982 World Cup is being played in Barcelona and police are swarming all over the hotel to protect the Polish team that is staying there.
Little by little it dawns on Carlos that the police are not there to protect the team but are actually closing in on their quarry. He has to get the hunted couple out and away. The Brazil vs Argentina match would be the time to do it …
The Lone Man is not, however, a simple crime thriller. It is a narrative set in a lunar landscape of fear. It is a many-layered novel about a frightened man fighting off his past, and the terror that has haunted his past. It is about life on the edge of an abyss.