“The Secret of the Enchanted Crypt” is an unusual and unexpected novel. This is both a witty parody of a detective story and a caricature of life in a big European city. Students mysteriously disappear from a monastery school. Realizing their powerlessness, the police resort to the help of a very peculiar character - a former criminal, and now a patient in a psychiatric hospital. Perhaps it is this combination of properties that gives his judgments amazing insight, and his actions - amusing unpredictability. But the main thing is that only this extravagant detective is able to solve the mysterious crime... Novelist and playwright Eduardo Mendoza (b. 1943) is deservedly considered one of the largest Spanish writers of our time. The novel “City of Wonders” became an international bestseller and was successfully filmed by director Mario Camus. “The Secret of the Enchanted Crypt” is the first of Mendoza’s parodic and satirical works.* * *Eduardo Mendoza is one of the most read and revered writers of modern Spain. His books are filmed, published “continued” in newspapers, they are translated into dozens of languages, and awarded national and international awards. “The Mystery of the Enchanted Crypt” is the first novel in a series of parody detective stories, where the investigator is a man with a dark past who is a patient in a psychiatric clinic.