Synopsis

Madrid, summer 1962. As Spain suffocates under the iron fist of Generalissimo Francisco Franco, the mysterious deaths of several children are hastily shelved. Inspector Florentino Abedes isn't convinced by the official version: for him, the killer is an elusive infanticide. A right-wing man, but with non-negotiable values, Abedes believes in an idea of ​​justice that often conflicts with the law enforced by regime officials. Thus, he quickly involves Camilo Blanco, a philology professor persecuted for his liberal views and suffering from a rare form of narcolepsy, in the investigation. Camilo is "the man of dreams," capable of interpreting dream visions and searching his own subconscious for clues. It is precisely the professor's gift, combined with Florentino's tenacity, that will lead to the solution of a puzzle intertwined with some indecipherable apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the remote provinces, over which the memory of Franco's Alzamiento and the violence of the civil war still looms. Among female figures of elusive charm, in the melancholy underbelly of a rebel country now reduced to order, the two investigators will confront the ghosts of the past to try to live again. Cruel Is the Night speaks of the darkest hours, of the black soul of Europe, of that nightmare that from a Munich beer hall in 1923 stretches to the Greece of the colonels. It speaks of the dictatorships of yesterday, and of all time.