These times call for heroes—but few are willing to pay the price of becoming one.
These times call for heroes, and heroism means refusing to kneel before monsters, no matter how powerful they are. In a land where no one dares to stand up, this man is the exception.
Julián Leal has just lost his job in Barcelona as a police inspector after an incident that none of his colleagues can fully explain: he brutally beat one of Catalonia’s most prominent businessmen. The reason? To deliver justice to a pedophile.
Recently diagnosed with cancer that will soon end his life, Julián finds himself at his lowest point. He decides to return to his small hometown in Galicia, which he left thirty years earlier after the mysterious murder of his father, hoping to make peace with his past and reconnect with his childhood friends.
Strangely, as soon as Inspector Leal arrives, corpses begin to appear in the village—and all evidence points to him as the killer. No one believes his claims of innocence, not even his closest friend and colleague, officer Virginia.
As Leal embarks on a race against time to uncover the real murderer and clear his name, another man shadows him closely: the true killer, a hitman carrying out his own twisted version of justice. The story is partly told through the killer’s voice—heard, but never seen—making him the other great protagonist of this tale.
Julián Leal is caught in no man’s land. Someone wants him dead and buried, but with death already stalking him, he has nothing left to lose. So he commits himself to one final, unrequested act of heroism—an act of redemption that will also be his downfall: saving one child to save them all. Including the child he once was, for his deepest secret is that he, too, was a victim of abuse.
RELEVANT INFORMATION: No One in This Land is a powerful story destined to redefine the contemporary crime novel, written by one of the leading voices in Spanish noir and winner of the Premio Nadal, Víctor del Árbol.
A master of the noir and thriller genres, with internationally acclaimed titles such as The Sadness of the Samurai (2012) and A Million Drops (2015), Víctor del Árbol is also a keen observer of human nature and a relentless psychologist who pushes his characters to their limits.
That is precisely what he does with Inspector Julián Leal in No One in This Land, taking readers on a fast-paced, breathless journey that compels reflection on loyalty and betrayal, illness and mortality, and the meaning of friendship. In the end, del Árbol asks us whether we are truly willing to be heroes—when being a hero simply means doing the right thing and paying the price for it.
No One in This Land stands as the epitome of contemporary neo-noir—a renewed vision of the crime novel with fully modern characters, reminiscent of John Wick. The story also features two strong female characters, Virginia and Clara, and unfolds across two timelines: the present (2005) and the past (1975).
Víctor del Árbol, named Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture, has received numerous awards, including the Premio Nadal, the Premio Tiflos de Novela, the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, and the Premio Tornado Negro for crime fiction. His work has been translated into many languages worldwide.
Critical Acclaim:
“We soon realize that it’s not just a crime novel where we’ll enjoy guessing who the killer is—it goes further, provoking internal conflicts in the reader.” — La Sexta
“Del Árbol’s writing is bold, effective, and innovative, pushing the boundaries of the noir genre.” — Diario de Cádiz
AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: In development.
AVAILABLE LANGUAGE: Spanish
