Teresa Solana

The First Prehistoric Serial Killer and Other Stories is a collection of short stories, many of them connected with a noir sensibility. The title story opens the anthology and it is hilarifying. Someone is smashing the heads of tribesmen while they sleep. After the third death, the chief suspects something is amiss and sets our Stone Age Sam Spade on the case. With no pretense of authenticity, the story is full of anachronisms that are pure entertainment. This is a light-hearted triple homicide. As to the solution, well, he thinks he solved it.

There’s another story with some very class-conscious ghosts that is quite amusing and a vampire who has simply lived too long, finding the modern era not respectful enough.

I enjoyed The First Prehistoric Serial Killer and Other Stories a lot, loving the sharp humor and the completely absurd stories. It’s a short, fast collection of stories that grab you instantly, whirl you away to Absurdistan and deposit you back in reality for another ride. It’s fun and sometimes that everything you need.

The connected stories that center on Barcelona have their own element of the absurd, giving us the perspective of the hapless woman who decides to make ends meet by renting a portion of her home to vacationers who turn out to be international criminals or the translator who happens to be assigned to translate their meeting. Solano consistently resists doing the usual.

I received a copy of The First Prehistoric Serial Killer and Other Stories from the publisher through Edelweiss.

The First Prehistoric Serial Killer and Other Stories at Bitter Lemon Press
Teresa Solano at Bitter Lemon Press

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