“Writing in genre means playing with or, in other words, accepting a kind of literature which has its own rules, engages the reader and sustains communication.” These words might well define Andreu Martín’s career as a novelist in which he has spent thirty years offering readers “cops and robbers” stories and, in the process, becoming the country’s most versatile, prolific crime writer. To date, he has published almost a hundred novels covering all sorts of genres and subgenres—among them detective stories, thrillers, and fantastic and erotic literature—which have turned him into a legend, a paragon, a man who can play in any position, who can write in Catalan and Spanish, who tries out all the variations, and who reveals a mastery that is not easy to equal.

Even taking his literary side alone—which is to say not counting his studies in psychology, scripts for comic books, cinema and television, a host of prologues, genre studies, plays, editing work, nonsense literature, magazine articles (Cambio 16, Tiempo and Gimlet)–his opus is virtually unclassifiable because of the great number of themes and characters he has introduced in his three decades in the profession. The fact is that Andreu Martín has approached the crime novel from the standpoints of every possible angle and theme: from explicit and implicit violence and extreme revenge in Pròtesi (Prosthesis); to paranormal phenomena and crazy characters in Història de mort (A Story of Death); denunciation of illegal trafficking in immigrants in Muts i a la gàbia (Mute and in the Cage); aggressiveness, mental turbulence, terror and unbalanced sexuality in Si és no és (If It Is It Isn’t); the fatality of characters who cannot change their destiny in Barcelona negra (Black Barcelona) and Zero a l’esquerra (A Zero to the Left); the shocking true stories of the mafia and political corruption in Barcelona Connection and Societat Negra (Black Society); the world of drugs, gambling and violence in Jesús a l’infern (Jesus in Hell); the network of sects in Per l’amor de Déu (For the Love of God); historical revisionism in Barcelona tràgica (Tragic Barcelona) and Cabaret Pompeya (Pompeii Cabaret); rural police procedure replete with all manner of characters in Jutge i part (Judge and Party); prostitution and the face of a psychopath in L’home que tenia raor (A Man with a Razor); a social chronicle of the recent past marked by the Franco regime, press laws and the world of students in Veritats a mitges (Half Truths); fascinating murderers seen through the prism of evil and violence in Bellísimes persones (Lovely People); and stories of armed robbers in Cop a la virreina (Attack on the Virreina). All of these works make up a heterogeneous and wide-ranging career.

However, within this corpus one must highlight a series of constant characteristics that appear throughout the work. First, is the way he embraces his characters from every point of view. As Andreu himself says, “Writing about the same detective would have detracted from the plausibility of my novels and would also have imposed restrictive limits that would deprive me of the pleasure of doing something new and enjoying myself.” Moreover, he adds that a lot of his main characters “might also die, just like the others do”. With these ideas, then, he breaks with the safe idea of always using the same detective in his series. This feature of his work, then, gives him a particular style which he uses with the aim of increasing the authenticity of his stories. And what is more, apart from building the story around a character generally related with the solving of a crime, Andreu’s main characters do different jobs and come from a range of social origins. In other words, he can tell the story from the standpoint of a detective, villain or criminal as well as from that of the victim. His characters might be members of the security forces (like Inspector Huertas, an incorruptible, stubborn and idealistic policeman, or the pair consisting of Commissioner Redondo and Inspector Juárez), private detectives like Àlex Barcelona (better known as “El Barna”) and occasional sleuths like the Gypsy Julio Izquierdo, and a long list of others including security guards with criminal records, drug traffickers, corrupt judges, journalists, psychiatrists who acquire other personalities, photographers, petty and many other kinds of delinquents, and serial killers. A lot of them have one thing in common: fearing for their lives, in wealth and in poverty, which always situates them between good and evil.

And, second, playing, as I mentioned at the outset, is one of the strong points of Martín’s fiction. As he puts it very well, “The concept of playing is essential for understanding my work. Furthermore, playing something with someone means knowing and respecting rules which require imagination and intelligence, and represent a challenge.”

A third notable aspect of his work is his flair for describing violence and domains of marginality, which he conveys with shocking clarity. Indeed, violence and the destructive experience of each of his characters are among the most outstanding features in his novels. Perhaps this factor is a link going back to his training as the writer who writes and the psychologist who thinks. Yet, let us go much further. Violence reflects a fact that is a real consequence of the world in which it is our lot to live and which, accordingly, is an element that is closely connected with the reality around us.

Finally, we come to the matter of space, in which Barcelona is almost always present and demonstrating Martín’s clear desire to produce a social and historical chronicle of the city of his birth. An emphasis on the suburbs means that this fictional account of Barcelona plots a route through a wide spectrum of hues in contemporary Catalan society. He deftly inserts himself into the wealthy neighbourhoods at the top of town and, in particular, into the marginal areas, the hotbeds of delinquency, and then minutely portrays with very fine, skilful brushstrokes the places frequented by, and ways of life of social groups from less economically privileged environs. Unsealed roads, semi-slum settlements, peripheral areas of the city, and rubbish-infested wastelands abound in the milieus presented by Martín, who turns them into a kind of “terrifying urban backdrop”.

All of this is suffused with certain doses of humour, a variety of narrative standpoints and plurality of voices which come together to indicate yet another of the key aspects of his work: his capacity for documentation, which gives total credibility to each character and each subject he deals with. In this regard, his exhaustive, rigorous documentation collected for and presented in each of his novels demonstrates his high degree of commitment to everything he does. His pleasure in playing has led him to open up several series, almost always with a co-author. Apart from the Wendy series, which he wrote alone, the writer who has most “suffered” working with him has been Jaume Ribera, co-author of the Flanagan series, which first appeared in the early 1990s and now numbers more than twelve volumes, thus making Flanagan one of the most famous detectives ever. These two writers have also embarked upon the Àngel Esquius series, which has now appeared in three volumes. They have also been successful with a blues trilogy (which was published together with a CD of music by Dani Nel·lo). Also notable are Martín’s books co-authored with Carles Quílez, Verónica Vila-Sanjuán and Juanjo Sarto.

This whole list is rounded off by his excellent work as a speaker, promoter and scholar of genre. In his theoretical articles, Martín has devoted many lines to analysing the situation of the genre, defining nomenclatures and trying to explain to readers how the detective novel derives from the crime novel, and that its origins are not exactly to be found in works like Oedipus the King, Hamlet or the Bible.

Behind this whole legacy are numerous literary prizes, hundreds of translations into many languages and film adaptations. Hence, it would be better not to talk about quantity —which is immense— but what I’d like to draw attention to is the quality of his writing. Because anyone can have a good story but you have to be able to tell it. And Andreu certainly knows how to do that.