Pepe Carvalho


Pepe Carvalho is a fictional private detective, the protagonist of a series of novels written by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán.

The character

Carvalho has a rich, complex and contradictory personality. The author uses his adventures to describe, and in many instances criticize, the political and cultural situation of Spanish society during the last half of the 20th century. For example, the self-destructive process of the Communist Party during the early period of the transition is being described in Asesinato en el Comité Central ; the fall of Felipism in the nineties is the background of El Premio ; and the changes which took place in Barcelona on the occasion of the Olympic Games in 1992 feature in Sabotaje Olímpico.
The Carvalho saga came to an end with the posthumous publication of Milenio Carvalho, in which the detective, accompanied by his inseparable partner Biscuter, imposes on himself one last adventure in the form of a world-trip that ends up being a bitter and melancholic glance at the sociopolitical situation in the world and the passing of time.

Curiosities

Various novels starring Carvalho have been adapted for television, although none of the TV adaptations were as successful as the books. An eight-part TVE series starring Eusebio Poncela appeared in 1986, followed by an Argentinian-Spanish co-production with Juan Diego that was cancelled after the first episode; and finally, a ten-part Italian-Spanish co-production starring Juanjo Puigcorbé and Jean Benguigui in 1999.
Carvalho novels have been adapted to film on four occasions: