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De Paz, Pedro, "The Man Who Killed Durruti". (Trans Paul Sharkey, postscript Stuart Christie, illus Richard Warren) 2005, Read and Noir (an imprint of ChristieBooks), Hastings, Sussex. Pbk. 136pp. Illus. ISBN 1-873976-26-7. £7.99 / e12.00

This title represents a slight change of direction for Stuart Christie, inasmuch as it is a work of fiction, although the subject matter, the Spanish Civil War / Social Revolution, is more familiar.

The main text is a brief discussion of the possible ways and reasons why Buenaventura Durruti, was shot during a reconnaissance trip to the front line in Madrid in November 1936 in the form of a fictional police investigation some three months after the events. The possible culprits include the official explanation - a fascist sniper - plus possible infighting within the forces resisting the Nationalists and even, more tragically, an accident or an assassination. The text also outlines the motives various actors might have for a cover-up of the "facts" or for promoting an official line, which portrayed Durruti's death in a heroic mode.

To be honest as a piece of fiction, thriller or noir text this is pretty thin stuff, more the outlines for such a story. The writing and translation do their work effectively for sure but it lacks the depth that a proper piece of fiction would require for it to stand alone. To make matters worse, much of the discussion requires the reader to have a mental map of Madrid in 1936 - complete with contemporary street names. A couple of roads I could find on street map of Madrid from the 1970s but others were missing and the 1970's map included several that looked like they had been renamed after the Civil War. (If I ever track down a 1936 map of Madrid with the relevant street names I'll post it on my website.)

Also the military nomenclature is unexplained. Terms such as nueve largo and naranjero are left in the original Spanish. To help future readers the naranjero is a licensed copy of the Schmeisser sub-machine gun made in Valencia, whereas the nueve largo is a gun that fired a 9mm bullet. (My thanks to the publisher for clarifying this.) Note these are not trivial concerns as the investigation hinges precisely on the location where the incident happened and the type of bullet that caused the fatal injury to Durruti.

On the plus side there is a interesting selection of photographs of Durruti and Richard Warren has contributed several full page drawings which certainly help with getting a flavour for the period. Also a bonus is Stuart Christie's postscript, which gives a detailed biographical sketch of Durruti together with the events surrounding the military rebellion and the workers' resistance to it, in which Durruti featured so prominently, not least as the head of the famous Durruti Column.

One aspect of the fictional story does need clearing up though. Sergeant Jose Manzana features heavily in the story, (nb he was a real historical character) and in a coda, dated some 25 years later, he is mentioned as having survived the Civil War and being in the company of Nationalist generals. Did Manzana survive the Civil War and, given, he had been a military adviser to Durruti, is there an implication that at some stage he switched sides again? So far I've not been able to find an answer to this question.

I'd really like to recommend this book. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but it doesn't really satisfy as a crime / thriller short story and is too brief to serve as a proper biography. On the other hand it's a brave experiment for the publishers and shows that there more ways of discussing political ideas than straightforward propaganda and history writing. That said the story itself isn't strong enough to carry the book into new markets and bring anarchist ideas to new audiences, so I suspect it's sales will remain in the anarchist milieu, which is a pity. Hopefully ChristieBooks can find more interesting titles to publish along the same lines.

5/10

Richard Alexander