Nothing Ever Happens - Ovejero Jose, Smith Philip H.D., Luis Graziella de

Carmela and Nico lead a comfortable life in a nice house in the suburbs with their little girl, Berta, their dog, Laika and Olivia, the young immigrant Ecuadorian home help. They have all settled into a cosy daily routine of fixed habits, as day follows day in a peaceful, middle-class pattern in which nothing ever happens. Or does it? When Olivia arrives one morning to find blood stains at the entrance of the house, a trail of footprints through the snow leads her and Nico to a discovery that not only slams home the terrifying fragility of life as it shifts suddenly and unexpectedly, but also the simple fact that appearances can be deceptive. Sometimes, beneath the surface calm, there's a huge storm brewing. So, the author takes us calmly, page by page, through the various aspects of each character, peeling away their masks as he goes, until by the end we are left with a stripped landscape revealing the tangled web of hidden stories that lurk beneath the apparent normality. All it takes is someone with a keen eye - someone like Jos Ovejero - looking through a random keyhole, to show that behind every door, at every moment something always happens.