The novel Black Air (216 pages) contains one of the author’s favourite techniques, that of the narrative enclosed within another narrative. The first five and last six chapters are told from the point of view of Dr Víctor Moldes, a recently qualified psychiatrist who works at the Beira Verde clinic, where he is entrusted with a patient, Laura Novo, who has yet to respond to treatment and spends her days repeatedly writing her name on sheets of paper. She is kept in a separate unit of the clinic, under permanent surveillance, for her own safety. In the middle twelve chapters, we learn the reasons for her condition, a narrative that is told in her own voice.

         Víctor Moldes is an excellent student of medicine and could easily have accepted any number of jobs at university, but prefers to work with patients. He is, therefore, thrilled when he is given a job at the Beira Verde clinic run by two leading psychiatry specialists, Hugo Montenegro and Elsa von Frantz. He is extremely impressed by the clinic’s record in alternative treatments and also by the clinic’s facilities, but is shocked to learn of the existence of a separate wing, where one patient is being kept on her own, who has not responded to treatment. Dr Montenegro entrusts this patient to Víctor because he believes he may be able to come up with a new kind of therapy and think outside accepted parameters. It is September 1999.

         A nurse brings Víctor his new patient’s case history, through which Víctor learns that Laura Novo grew up in Coruña and Madrid, where she studied journalism and worked as a journalist before inexplicably abandoning Madrid and returning to Galicia a year earlier, in September 1998. He is far from convinced by the clinic’s own diagnosis of anxiety disorder owing to a lightning bolt that landed right next to Laura when she was out walking near the house where she stayed in Galicia in May 1999, as a result of which she spent six weeks in Santiago General Hospital and was then admitted to the Beira Verde clinic at the end of June, two and a half months before Víctor met her.

         Among the papers, Víctor discovers a collection of short stories written by Laura, Like Floating Clouds, and comes to the conclusion that the best way to lay siege to Laura’s mind is through literature. He decides to enter her cell, sitting in a corner and first reading to himself in silence, then out loud, to see if he can draw her attention. This works and, after several days, Laura comes to sit next to him in order to listen. The next stage of Víctor’s plan is to start reading a novel, which he does, and then walk outside. Despite her initial hesitation and reaction to the light, Laura decides to follow him and eventually their reading gives way to the beginnings of conversation.

         However, on the subject of her return to Galicia a year before, Laura remains mute. She is having bad dreams, which Víctor interrupts in order to learn the cause. Laura explains she is in a passage, wanting but unable to turn a corner, where she can see a large, black shadow on the wall. Víctor understands this to refer to some unresolved conflict, which he believes she must relive in order to resolve it. Two incidents seem to put paid to any progress they may have made. The first happens in a restaurant, where Laura faints at the sight of a dish of lobsters; the second, in a museum, where Laura runs away at the sight of a plinth with what looks like animal markings. Laura later claims she is recovering the memory of her time back in Galicia and Víctor persuades her to write it all down in a journey upriver like that of Marlow in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

         Here begins Laura’s own narrative, as she responds to the doctor’s request. In Madrid, she realizes her relationship with Miguel is going nowhere and she cannot bear his family, so despite the wedding plans she takes the decision to relocate to Galicia. She has also recently lost her job as a journalist owing to her criticisms of the Minister of Culture, so decides her best prospects lie in accepting a job at university, for which she will have to finish her thesis. She comes across an advertisement for rural tourism in Galicia and goes onto a website, where she discovers one particular property, the Big House of Lanzós, which is owned and run by Carlos Valcárcel, her old history teacher from school, with whom she fell in love before her father was promoted and the family moved to Madrid in 1985. She cannot believe that their paths have crossed again, but on realizing that this is the same Carlos Valcárcel, she makes a booking to stay in the Big House.

         Once there, she learns that Carlos abandoned his job as a teacher owing to constant complaints about indiscipline and political content in his classes, despite the fact that his students found him to be an inspiring teacher. On the death of his father and aunt, he inherited numerous properties in Santiago and Coruña, which allowed him to abandon his job and go travelling for two years, an experience that was ultimately unsatisfying. So he returned to his maternal great-grandfather’s property in Lanzós, the place where he spent his childhood summers, and decided to turn it into a hotel offering rural tourism. The hotel was refurbished and opened in 1993, and business is flourishing.

         What looks as if it’s going to be an ideal vacation quickly turns sour. Laura and Carlos spend their time elated in each other’s company. Laura also gets on with the family that helps look after the house, but not with Moncho. She doesn’t know why, but for some reason Moncho won’t accept her presence. Laura eventually cajoles Carlos into explaining the reason. Moncho is convinced that Laura, a redhead, will awake the Great Beast that is said to sleep under the earth, in a deep cave for which there is an entrance in the nearby St Simon’s Mountains. On a walk there, with Carlos’ dog, Daedalus, Laura comes across a cave which is so dark she is on the verge of falling down an abyss. Daedalus starts barking and saves her life. But, from that day on, Laura becomes aware of a foul-smelling presence that seems to follow her around all the time. She tries to shake it off, but is unable. When Carlos suggests taking some portrait photographs of her inside and outside the house, a stain appears on all the prints behind Laura’s back, which Moncho takes as proof of the Great Beast’s presence.

         At the end of November, when the weather has taken a turn for the worse, Daedalus is heard howling at night and then found dead at the back of the house with cut marks down his side. They attribute the death to wolves or wild boars, but when the daughter of two of the hotel’s guests, Iria, who out of admiration for Laura has dyed her hair red, is also attacked and found with cuts all down her back, Laura is unable to accept an easy explanation and decides to return to Madrid for Christmas, claiming that she needs to sort out her relationship with Miguel.

         In Madrid, Laura quickly brings her relationship with Miguel to a permanent end. Carlos sends her emails every day, explaining how a prison inmate with a record of violent behaviour, who was in the area on the day Iria was attacked, has been arrested and all her concerns have a perfectly logical explanation. When Laura receives a letter in the post in which Carlos declares his love for her, she is finally persuaded to return to Lanzós. Laura and Carlos enter a honeymoon period, disturbed only by Moncho’s angry looks. But events continue to upset Laura’s mind. First Carlos goes hunting and loses the scarf Laura has lent him right by the cave where Daedalus the dog saved her life. Then, at the beginning of May, feeling better, Laura decides to go for a walk, but is caught out in the open by a storm. She senses the same hostile presence right behind her and stumbles as she races across a meadow, turning around to confront this black mass, which seems to form limbs, eyes and a mouth, but is struck by a bolt of lightning which lands right in front of Laura, after which she loses her mind. This is all she remembers and here her narrative comes to an end.

         We return to the doctor’s narrative for the final six chapters. The doctor decides to verify Laura’s narrative by travelling to Lugo to see if Iria’s parents, who are supposed to work at the museum in Lugo, really exist. He finds out that they do and Iria’s father confirms the series of events. Víctor then travels on to Lanzós to discover that the Big House has been abandoned. He is tempted then to visit the cave where Laura almost lost her life, but finds that the entrance to the cave has been walled up. He makes a hole and goes in, where he first notices a foul smell and then the sound of an animal breathing. As he turns to leave, the necklace he is wearing, which Laura has given him as a sign of their friendship, breaks off and falls down the abyss.

         Back at the clinic, Laura’s condition has worsened. Víctor decides to pay a visit to the missing piece in the puzzle, Carlos himself, who now lives in Porto. Carlos explains that he was the one who took Laura to hospital and then had her admitted to the clinic. He also burned all of her things, so that she would be safe. Safe from what? asks the doctor. From the Great Beast. Víctor claims that monsters exist only inside us and surface in our brains. It is the job of the psychiatrist to learn the reason for their surfacing and return them to their resting place. Carlos is prepared to accept this theory only if nothing happens to Laura on the first anniversary of the Great Beast’s arrival, when Daedalus was killed. Víctor is suddenly terribly afraid that by visiting the cave he may have unwittingly led the beast straight to where Laura is.

         Víctor returns to the clinic as fast as he can, only to discover that there has been a power cut in his absence and Laura has escaped. The doctor rushes to Laura’s room, where he comes across numerous signs of the beast’s presence, the door sliced into like butter with a knife, ashen footprints and, above all, the necklace he lost in the cave. It is three years since the events took place. He has abandoned his career as a psychiatrist and knows that he will never see Laura again.

         The novel Black Air combines elements of terror and psychiatry in a tightly constructed narrative that moves forward at a rapid pace. It is one of the author’s best known books, which was included in both the White Ravens Catalogue in 2001 and the IBBY Honour List in 2002, two international lists of the year’s best children’s and young adult fiction.

Synopsis © Jonathan Dunne