"The Summer of Dead Toys" by Antonio Hill the debut of Inspector Hector Salgado

A seemingly simple case of a young man falling to his death, at first it appeared to be accidental or perhaps a suicide, but no one thought it was murder, not until Inspector Hector Salgado was assigned the case upon his return to Barcelona from a lengthy vacation in his native Buenos Aires.

“The Summer of Dead Toys” is Antonio Hill’s first book featuring Barcelona’s criminal detective Inspector Hector Salgado.  We first meet Inspector Salgado as he returns from Buenos Aires, where he has been cooling his heels after an incident where he unmercifully beat a questionable Dr. Omar who caused the death of a young Nigerian girl. This young girl had been kidnapped by a human trafficking network in which the doctor was involved, a network that Inspector Salgado spent more than a year trying to break.  Salgado’s superior, Superintendent Savall, put him on leave of absence while Savall dealt with the beating incident.

Now that Inspector Salgado is back to work, and the beating incident not yet finalized as Dr. Omar has suddenly gone missing, Inspector Salgado is assigned the task of quickly closing this case of Marc Castells Vidal’s fall to his death.  Marc’s estranged mother, Joana Vidal, a long ago friend of Superintendent Savall, has asked the Superintendent to look into the death of her son as she doesn’t believe it was suicide and wants proof that is was not. A simple case becomes more complicated as Inspector Salgado, and his partner, the “new girl” Agent Leire Castro, delve into what actually happened that night. Everyone involved with this case, other than Inspector Salgado and Agent Castro, either are hiding something or just want the case closed as an accidental death. No one wants Salgado to prove murder.

This book was quite good as it was not a straight forward case of it being murder; was it murder or was it what everyone wants it to be, accidental. The case escalates as we meet the people involved in Marc’s life.  Then there is the side story of the Dr. Omar case, a case which doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon, and the side stories of the personal lives of Salgado and Castro that bring a human touch to the book. The ending was a surprise and I think most readers will be as surprised as I was. I look forward to reading the next Inspector Hector Salgado book “The Good Suicides,” and learning more about Salgado and Agent Castro, two people I like very much.