The latest addition to my website is Carlos Rojas‘ El valle de los caídos [The Valley of the Fallen]. This book is the first in a trilogy by Rojas concerning Spanish history. Despite the title, named after a Francoist monument to the fallen in the Civil War, it does not involve the Civil War but is about Goya, Charles IV and Ferdinand VII, kings of Spain during Goya’s era, and the death of Franco. Rojas mixes up events from Goya’s time and from Goya’s perspective with a story told in the few days leading up to Franco’s death and comes to the conclusion that things really have not got much better and probably are not going to do so. I plan to get to the next two books in the trilogy in the next week or two.