The Pirelli Series (Saga Pirelli)

The Great Pirelli | Pirelli Red-Hot

After spending half his life behind bars, Pirelli, a small-time crook with disastrously bad luck, tries to rebuild his life far away from crime. But alongside an unlikely gang of outcasts, con artists, and improbable geniuses, he repeatedly finds himself drawn into murders, conspiracies, and impossible heists, becoming, against all odds, the accidental hero of thrilling adventures where humor, suspense, and chaos always go hand in hand.

Pirelli is a small-time criminal: bald, skinny, and gifted with an extraordinary talent for getting himself into trouble. After spending much of his life in prison, he tries to rebuild his existence by taking odd jobs and staying away from crime. However, circumstances seem determined to drag him time and again into unlikely investigations, impossible robberies, and ever more absurd situations.

Although he lacks the skills of a brilliant detective or a master thief, he makes up for them with an astonishing ability to improvise and an unwavering loyalty to those he considers his friends.

Orbiting around him is a gallery of characters as eccentric as they are endearing: MacGyver, an alcoholic and schizophrenic thief; Reverend Brown, a blind pastor from Oklahoma blessed with exceptional intelligence; along with hackers, drifters, retired criminals, and all manner of outcasts who, united by friendship and necessity, eventually form a peculiar family.

The Pirelli saga blends crime fiction, comedy, and thriller into a fast-paced and irreverent mix. Filled with absurd humor, memorable characters, and a relentless pace, its stories are packed with robberies, conspiracies, and outrageous situations in which luck, or more often the lack of it, plays as important a role as the protagonists’ plans.

In The Great Pirelli, the prestigious police commissioner Armando Torres is imprisoned as the prime suspect in the murder of lawyer Antonio Bódalo. Convinced of his old friend’s innocence and indebted to him for helping him after his release from prison, Pirelli decides to investigate the case himself.

To do so, he recruits his inseparable companions, Reverend Brown and MacGyver, and begins following the few clues available: photographs, an agenda, a strange lighter found in Torres’s home, and notes left behind by the victim. Their investigation leads them to Augusto Fábregas, a powerful Galician businessman connected to shady dealings, and to Bódalo’s widow, whose behavior quickly arouses suspicion.

Although Fábregas’s henchmen subject him to a brutal beating, Pirelli refuses to abandon the investigation. Little by little, he discovers that the wives of Torres, Bódalo, and Fábregas share a dark secret. After navigating false leads and numerous dangers, he and his friends eventually uncover a mysterious female cult linked to the three women.

At last, Pirelli gathers the evidence needed to prove Armando Torres’s innocence. However, just when everything seems resolved and the case is closed, an unexpected setback sends him back to prison: he is arrested for driving without a license and ends up behind bars once again.

In Pirelli Red-Hot, Pirelli has been free for barely three months when a former prison companion, whom he nicknamed Mr. Croissant, shows up at his doorstep seeking refuge. The following morning, the man dies of a heart attack, leaving behind a suitcase containing a valuable diamond stolen from the Prado Museum.

Fearing he will be implicated in the theft and become the prime suspect, Pirelli gathers MacGyver, Reverend Brown, and a colorful group of criminals and misfits to return the jewel through an unusual reverse heist. The operation is successful, but they soon discover that the recovered diamond was nothing more than a fake.

Enter Santiago “The Red” Gallardo, a veteran thief who tells them about the real Black Death Diamond, a legendary gemstone said to hold the access key to a vast bitcoin fortune. Convinced that the jewel can still be found, he drags the group into a new adventure. After acquiring a first diamond during the robbery of an armored convoy near Tolosa and discovering that it too is fake, the clues eventually lead them to the Casino Palais du Soleil in Monte Carlo. There they execute an elaborate heist that finally allows them to locate the genuine gem.

However, during the return journey, Santiago dies unexpectedly. The gang divides the spoils and goes their separate ways. But Pirelli, once again the victim of his legendary bad luck, watches fortune slip through his fingers. An absurd misunderstanding while attempting to deposit his share of the money in a bank lands him back in prison.

RELEVANT INFORMATION: Julio Rodríguez is a Spanish author who has received numerous literary awards, including the Vargas Llosa Novel Prize, the Emilio Alarcos Poetry Prize, the City of Mérida Poetry Prize, and the Hermanos Argensola International Poetry Prize.

The Pirelli Saga successfully combines crime fiction and comedy, creating stories in which suspense coexists with outrageous humor and a cast of eccentric, charismatic characters. Its plots maintain a highly dynamic pace while never losing sight of the human dimension of protagonists who are deeply endearing. Its ensemble nature, sharp dialogue, balance of action and comedy, and tone reminiscent of heist cinema make the saga particularly attractive for audiovisual adaptation, whether as a crime comedy series or a film franchise.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY

“In The Great Pirelli, Julio Rodríguez immerses us in a detective story, pure hard-boiled crime fiction seasoned with a great deal of humor. […] Julio Rodríguez acknowledged the influence on The Great Pirelli of that fascinating Mendoza character who solved criminal cases from his own peculiar underworld in The Olive Labyrinth and The Mystery of the Enchanted Crypt.” El Comercio

AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV Series, Limited Series, Feature Film, TV Film.

AVAILABLE LANGUAGES: Spanish.