When Oscar Amalfitano begins an impulsive affair with one of his students at the University of Barcelona, he has no idea where it will lead. More than his turbulent revolutionary past, or the death of his beautiful wife, the scandalous exposure of this relationship will change him for ever. Forced to flee with his seventeen-year-old daughter, Amalfitano finds himself in Santa Teresa, a sprawling town on the US — Mexico border. Haunted by dark tales of murdered women, this mythical place is populated by mysterious characters. We meet Castillo, who makes his living selling his forgeries of Larry Rivers paintings to wealthy Texans; Pancho Monje, a son born of six generations of foundlings; and Arcimboldi, a magician and writer whose work has been important to Amalfitano for some time, but whose return to prominence is just beginning. Woes of the True Policeman is an exciting, kaleidoscopic novel, lyrical and intense yet darkly humorous. Exploring the limits of memory and the power of art, it returns to the world and characters of Bolano's masterpiece, 2666, and marks the culmination of one of the great careers of world literature.

El narrador vio por primera vez a aquel hombre en 1971, o 1972, cuando Allende aún era presidente de Chile. Entonces se hacía llamar Ruiz-Tagle y se deslizaba con la distancia y la cautela de un gato por los talleres literarios de la universidad de Concepción. Escribía poemas también distantes y cautelosos, seducía a las mu jeres, despertaba en los hombres una indefinible desconfianza. Volvió a verlo después del Golpe. Pero en esa ocasión el narrador aún ignoraba que aquel aviador, Wieder, que escribía con humor versículos de la Biblia con un avión de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, y Ruiz-Tagle, el aprendiz de poeta, eran uno y el mismo.

'Part road movie, part joyful, nostalgic confession. A masterpiece' Daily Telegraph First published in Spanish in 1998, The Savage Detectives was immediately hailed as a critical success, wining the Herralde Prize and the Romulo Gallegos Prize. But with the 2007 English-language translation the book became more than a bestseller it began the global sensation of Bolanomania. New Year's Eve 1975, Mexico City. Two hunted men leave town in a hurry, on the desert-bound trail of a vanished poet. Spanning two decades and crossing continents, this remarkable quest is a journey told and shared by a generation of lovers, rebels and readers, whose testimonies are woven together into one of the most dazzling Latin American novels of the twentieth century. In 2012 Picador celebrate our 40th anniversary. During that time we have published many prize-winning and bestselling authors including Bret Easton Ellis and Cormac McCarthy, Alice Sebold and Helen Fielding, Graham Swift and Alan Hollinghurst. Years later, Picador continue to bring readers the very best contemporary fiction, non-fiction and poetry from across the globe.

Readers who have snacked on a writer such as Haruki Murakami will feast on Roberto Bolano. (Sunday Times). Cesar Vallejo, renowned Peruvian poet, lies dying in hospital — he's hiccupping himself to death. When the doctors struggle to offer a diagnosis, his wife pins her hopes on the mesmerist and reclusive bachelor Pierre Pain. But after the appearance of two mysterious Spaniards, Monsieur Pain finds his access to the hospital barred and things soon go awry... Set in the rainy, crepuscular streets of an unsettled 1938 Paris, Monsieur Pain merges the best of Borges with Edgar Allen Poe, and its dark blend of unrequited desire, guilt, grief and betrayal makes this a gripping noir conspiracy as rich as it is strange. Bolano writes with such elegance, verve and style and is immensely readable. (Guardian). His fiction was hallucinatory, haunting and experimental. (Times Literary Supplement).

Readers who have snacked on a writer such as Haruki Murakami will feast on Roberto Bolano. (Sunday Times). When Nuria Marti, the beautiful Spanish figure skater, is suddenly dropped from the Olympic team, a besotted admirer builds a secret ice rink for her in the ruins of an old mansion on the outskirts of their seaside town. What he doesn't tell her is that he paid for it using embezzled public funds. Such deceit is not without repercussions, and the skating rink soon becomes a crime scene... Rife with political corruption, sex, jealousy and frustrated passion, The Skating Rink — narrated in turn by a corrupt and pompous civil servant, a beleaguered romantic poet, and a duplicitous local entrepreneur — is a darkly atmospheric tale of murder and its motives. Bolano writes with such elegance, verve and style and is immensely readable. (Guardian). His fiction was hallucinatory, haunting and experimental. (Times Literary Supplement).