Counterfeit

Rare antiquities, forgery, betrayal, and murder. It’s all part of the game.

Antique salvager, counterfeiter, and former art forger Jota knows his newest commission pays suspiciously well, but it’s too easy to turn down. All he has to do is find an old clock that apparently has disappeared after being sold in the auction of a bankrupt estate. In Madrid’s El Rastro market, where whisper networks of shady and ambitious hustlers promise generous rewards for minimal favors, what sounds too good to be true usually is, but the last thing Jota is expecting to uncover is his own past.

His investigation draws him back into a circle of old acquaintances―including Diego, his former partner in crime, and Diego’s daughter, Laura. When Diego shows interest in the seemingly worthless clock, Laura’s curiosity is piqued, and when he’s killed in connection with the timepiece, she becomes obsessed with finding his murderers. Together Laura and Jota set out to hunt for the mysterious memento, but they have little idea just how much danger they’re in. The deeper they go, the darker, and bloodier, things get. In a world this deceptive and mazelike―a world Jota knows all too well―the only thing he and Laura can trust in is their instinct for survival.

Guillermo Valcárcel was born in Madrid. He worked in the construction industry by day and studied filmmaking by night until 2008, when he moved to Costa Rica, where he currently lives and works as a filmmaker. He also dedicates his time to writing and illustrating. He is the author of the thrillers Counterfeit and Shadows Across America as well as The Wave That Hit Spain, an influential essay that launched his writing career.

Kit Maude is a Spanish-to-English translator and editor based in Buenos Aires. His translations of stories by Latin American authors have been featured in Granta, the Literary Review, and the Short Story Project, among other publications. He has translated several great Argentinian and Uruguayan writers, including Jorge Luis Borges, Armonía Somers, Julio Cortázar, Antonio Di Benedetto, and Adolfo Bioy Casares. He was born in Hong Kong and received a bachelor’s degree in comparative American studies from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom.