The novel
Written until now…
Chapter 1
The story of “The Queen´s Horizon” starts during a July daybreak in 1936. In that moment, Roxo (the main character) was living the last hours of a life full of fight and disappointment before facing a firing squad.
From that moment, the story jumps forward in time and starts ten years before, in 1926, when the young medicine student, Jean Francoise Pascal de Rochefort, is enrolled by Roxo to fill the physician position in his boat, La Malmeluca, a three mast schooner that worked in the traffic of more or less, mostly less, legal goods.
The adaptation of this young Frenchman to the daily routines of a boat that works in smuggling will not be easy. In fact, a quick intervention of Roxo will be necessary to avoid the rape of the Frenchmen by the crew members.
Chapter 2
While inside La Malmeluca are solving the problems caused by the French –and handsome- Pascal arrival, in Paris three men conspire to face the proletarian revolution and to lay the foundations for a race, order and religion Europe. Each man represents a country that will have a deciding importance in the fascist axis (Wottan is Germany, Silas is Italy and Pelayo, Spain) and their mission does not allow weakness and fissures. And that is exactly, what Alexia means for them, a mysterious woman whose life is based on anarchism and mobilization.
This dangerous activist is, as conspirators know, around Spain. Alexia sends letters to Luigi ((Luigi Camilo Berneri, Italian anarchist who years later will organize with Durriti, the first international combatants in the republican side during the Civil War) where she explains her internal worries and her risky escape. Spied by the agents infiltrated in the republican service, Alexia lefts Barcelona (where she had to kill a spy who was trying to kill her) to Valencia first, and then to Seville, through a trip that has supposedly shake off her pursuers.
Chapter 3
Alexia is closer to her enemies than she thinks. In this chapter a new chapter is introduced, Dimitri Bogrov -alias Misha- a double ex agent from the Zar´s (Ojhrana) secret police, who is now working for the fascist axis that is being created in Europe. This man has become the Alexia persecution in a personal battle. And this battle leaded him to Seville where Alexia is supposed to arrive incognito.
At the same time, La Malmeluca is taking advantage of the favourable winds and is sailing quickly along the Mediterranean coast while we meet all the crew. Roxo surprises the crew with a secret operation that takes place in Alborán Island. In the operation, the right-hand men of the la Malmeluca captain unload two hundred kilograms of mustard gas that are collected by the Spanish army to use them in Morocco.
They get pesetas and weapons from the transaction that Roxo hopes to barter into gold in their next destination: Huelva Estuary. La Malmeluca arrives in a land where the worker´s movement is living a decisive moment.
Chapter 4
During her trip to the south, Alexia finds her self charmed by the Seville atmosphere and this relaxed feeling causes an unfortunate meeting with her persecutor Bogrov. However the strong resistance of her comrades avoid her falling into the hands of the agent who is following Alexia to neutralize her commissioned by the Axis conspirators.
After the fright in Seville, the anarchist is now in Huelva with a veteran fighter of the worker´s movement, they share thoughts about bitter past times, (they talk about “The shot´s year”, in Riotinto, thirty-eight years ago) and promising future (previous steps before the creation of the FAI -Iberian Anarchist Federation-). But, the most important part of the meeting is the help of the old Maximiliano to prepare Alexia´s discreetly escape from Spain.
The boat chosen for this mission is La Malmeluca. Roxo has some pending business with the old anarchist (basically to barter weapons into gold) and Maximiliano uses the opportunity to manage Alexia´s visa. Roxo doesn´t like the idea of having a woman on board but gold is more important for him.
The operation takes place in Doñana coast but it is interrupted by the presence of the civil guard that appears by chance. The meeting ends with shooting, Roxo fires at one of the guard because he doesn´t want to have witnesses.
We finally met again with the Axis conspirators. Once again, they focus their attention in Alexia. They are worried because they lose her scent, but Pelayo- the Spain´s order representative- has relevant information (one of Alexia´s anarchist friends in Seville is his agent) that gives him an approximate idea about the destination of the Russian.
Chapter 5
La Mameluca arrives in Vigo and Roxo leaves his men in the port; he wants them to forget the nerves of the last voyage with women and alcohol. Accompanied by Piño Paz, Pascal and Alexia, the captain travels to La Guardia where they were welcome by his mother, Carmen and his daughter, Alba.
Roxo´s return has a clear objective: to guarantee his daughter’s security and to protect her from the men who killed his wife. Around this story line, Pascal and Alexia take stock of Roxo´s life and his drama.
In this way, the reader is involved in a background where Roxo is smuggling in Turkey. Developing this activity, he discovers Dilara, who will be the love of his life and Alba´s mother. Dilara –the daughter of a Roxo´s partner who is not a good friend of him- is engaged with a young officer of the Turkish army, Ibrahim Enré. Roxo and Dilara run away together and she would be rejected by her family. Eventually, this rejection will become into a horrible revenge.
After taking Alba into the novitiate of Tui, Roxo starts a trip to Hamburg, to kill Ibrahim Enré.
Chapter 6
Bogrov crosses Europe from the south to the north looking for the ship where Alexia is boarded. The reaction´s agent hopes to find new clues about the Russian woman in Paris where the anarchist circles may reveal him useful information to find Alexia.
Meanwhile, in Hamburg, Roxo has already started his own search. His inquiries are rude and violent like him. The final result: a bloodshed that seems to be efficient despite everything. La Malmeluca´s captain finds Ibrahim Enré, the hired assassin who killed Dilara.
Chapter 7
Roxo culminates a part of his revenge in Hamburg, where he brutally killed his wife´s assassin. The quick escape from the German port and the hard navigation through the English Channel is not relaxing La Malmeluca´s crew that has now a new member, Alexia.
Bogrov is severe punished by his Nazi bosses who blame him for letting the Russian woman get away once again.
Finally, after stopping in the Irish bay of Cork, Roxo gets a free passage to the United States of America. La Malmeluca is about to participate in the lucrative but dangerous alcohol smuggling.
Chapter 8
La Malmeluca´s crew is involved in the illegal alcohol smuggling. Their interlocutor in New York is Mad Dog, an Irish gangster. After the escape from Europe, Roxo is not really involved in his business and he is delegating the relations with local gangsters to Pascal. Meanwhile, Alexia is organizing an arms trade network from USA to Europe. The Russian woman and all the anarchists are waiting expectantly for the political situation in Spain where the general Sanjurjo has just tried a failed military coup. Bogrov, officially taking part of the detective´s agency Pinkerton, is still working for the international axis organized to fight against the communist threat and he is following Alexia´s every step. In this context, Mad Dog, the criminal partner of Roxo and his people, is killed and La Malmeluca´s crew has to decide if they start a war against the assassin or accept his collaboration offer.
Chapter 9
The Roxo´s crew is involved in the incipient war for the control of the organized crime that sets the Irish against the Italians. Living round the glamour of the boxing nights and the frantic sounds from Cotton Club, the Maltese (people in New York City think this is the origin of La Mameluca) wait for the evolution of the days while they are intensifying their alcohol smuggling operations. Meanwhile, Alexia attends to a growing excitation of the political atmosphere, the American anarchists, organized round the Vanguard Group consider it is necessary to participate directly in the war against fascism that it seems it´s going to start in Spain. The steps of the Russian girl are followed by Bogorv who has found in the innocent Anatoli a valuable confidant to know the revolutionary movements of Alexia.
Chapter 10
The violence seems to be present in all the stages of the history. The Irish gangsters try to definitely finish with the Italians. Alexia commits a terrorist attack against a group of American and German Nazis. In Spain, the revolution in Asturias augurs an uncertain future for the country. In this context, Roxo, Alexia and Pascal are involved in a torrid love triangle that ends when the Captain of La Mameluca stops the murder of the French man by a hired killer of the Bonanno family. The deterioration of the situation advises our main characters to illegally return to Spain, leaving La Mameluca and its crew tied up in New York waiting for the last deliveries to finally come back to Spain.
Chapter 11
When Roxo arrives in Spain, first of all, he gets his daughter Alba out of the convent where she had taken refuge. The captain of La Mameluca knows it is a dangerous decision. The political atmosphere in the country is turning worst and his relation with Alexia and the anarchist movement can have consequences for him and his family. It seems that the Russian girl wants to admit he is right; she plans an army action in Santiago de Compostela to get secret documents of the Axis conspirators that could be crucial to defend the cause. After reading the robbed documents, they raise the alarm. The European fascism agents have indentified and localized Roxo and his colleagues.
Chapter 12
Roxo confides in his cousin, and right-hand man, Piño Baz the decision of fighting for the people in the war that is coming. Both men think they are going to fight in the right side. Anyway, Roxo, Alexia and Pascal decide to distance their selves to avoid the persecution of the fascist agents. The destiny clock precipitates everything after the victory of the Frente Popular in the ballot boxes. The conspirators of the Axis prepare their plans to the finally response while people is celebrating a victory full of tragedy. Bogrov, the man who has never been a man, attends as a privilege part of the audience to the introduction of a war that nobody is already question.
