A Mallorca full of secrets, lost loves, and a legacy tainted by the shadow of the past

At the end of 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire slowly disintegrates as a consequence of its defeat in World War I.

After four years of uninterrupted conflict, Felipe Neudorf, the illegitimate son of Archduke Luis Salvador of Austria—and one of the Empire's youngest officers—returns to his native Mallorca after surviving the last battle on the Italian front: the Battle of Vittorio Veneto.

In that battle, his godfather, Mateo de Babenburg, colonel of the 9th Hussar Regiment and Duke of Hallstatt, died. A man of unshakeable principles. Upon his return, nothing is as he expected.

On the island, his godfather’s name is cursed. In 1914, hours after setting sail, he was accused of brutally murdering Catalina Horrach. As beautiful as she was complex, Catalina was the only sister of a prominent Mallorcan businessman and the fiancée of the Count of Algaida, a ruined arrogant aristocrat.

In an early 20th-century Mallorca—where tradition inevitably clashes with progress—Felipe must navigate through lies, scorn, and silence to uncover the truth. Sometimes using intelligence, and other times, more often than not, resorting to a violence he had sworn to leave behind.

Leopoldo Salinas

All books of the author