The Year of the Flood

Sister Consuelo had a perfectly innocent reason for going to call on Augusto Aixela, the rich landowner who lived up the hill from her convent: as Mother Superior, she was in charge of the hospital run by the sisters, and needed funds to start an Old People's Home - social provision in Franco's Spain left a great deal to charity. How the squire and the Mother Superior become involved is the substance of this story. As in all Eduardo Mendoza's novels, the touch is light, the humour a gentle undercurrent; but the true meaning and beauty that will strike the reader lie in the delicate description of two mature people who are a mystery, indeed an affront, to each other, who resort to feints and evasions in order to preserve an inner integrity that must ultimately be violated.