Child's Play, By Carmen Posadas, trans. Nick Caistor and Amanda Hopskinson

This is a classy murder mystery whose rushing narrative is stained by a deceit perpetrated before the story begins. Luisa, 52, is a successful writer living in Madrid – rather like Carmen Posadas. Although single, Luisa enjoys having a Man in Her Life. At the moment it's Enrique, a mattress-maker whose down-to-earth observations and indifference to Luisa's literary world are a great comfort to her.

But far more important to Luisa is her pre-pubescent daughter, Elba. She is starting a new school – the one Luisa attended as a child, an outsider recently arrived from south America. Elba, too, feels an outsider. Told from infancy that she was adopted, she struggles to discover where she's really from. Luisa confesses to her daughter that she lied about her origins, a revelation that has lasting consequences.

When Luisa accompanies Elba on her first day, she meets two former schoolfriends, and confronts a blizzard of childhood memories. When a classmate of Elba's dies, Luisa develops terrible suspicions, seeing parallels between her own schoolroom experiences and those of her daughter.

Meanwhile, Luisa is hammering away at her latest novel, about the clever, sexy Cuban-Irish psychologist and private detective Carmen O'Inns, modelled on herself. Inspired by the classroom milieu, she sets her tale in a school, focusing on the murder of a pupil. She doesn't know the denouement when she starts, and assembles a cast of suspects.

Among Luisa's old schoolfriends is Miguel, now thrice divorced, with whom she starts a romance while their children form a complex bond. In a hilarious set-piece, she takes a call from Enrique, who has crucial information that might help identify the killer. Luisa fends off Miguel's affections as the conversation drags on. The ridiculous episode reveals the clashes of loyalty that make you deceive those you love.

Luisa and the reader are discovering that secrets and lies reinforce themselves in the past, in the present – and in fiction. With the three levels expertly handled, the story hurtles on with clarity, peppered with piercing reflections on late motherhood, childhood innocence and evil, and the advantages of a Man in Your Life over a miserable marriage. Luisa takes on the role of her fictional detective, battles her memories, and realises the truth of the tragedy here and now.