Spies need to be observant, and for a while, in my obsession with detail and immersion, I had Lund scrutinizing every local brand he came across in search of insights about Gran Canaria. Thankfully, narrative economy ultimately prevailed, and I removed all those long-winded descriptions and forced foreshadowing that didn’t really work on the page. I’m sure you appreciated that. The novel is too long as it is.
Besides the honey rum label, which I discussed a few weeks ago, I originally planned to feature the Tropical bottle Lund gets in the Maspalomas “chiringuito” more prominently. Tropical is our flagship beer, and its bottle features a plain label with a dog’s face. Interestingly, that label foreshadows a key location our hero visits in Chapter 6.
The Tropical logo represents one of the iron-cast dogs on the steps of the Plaza de Santa Ana, just opposite the cathedral’s frontage in Las Palmas’ old town.
The story of those statues is unclear, although they have been known to be in that place since 1895. Some sources claim they were donated by noted British merchant Thomas Miller to the city, but that could not be confirmed even by Miller’s living descendants. Much more enigmatic is the identity of the sculptor, whose initials (AJ) can be read on the statues themselves. Some indicate it was British artist Adrian Jones and others French sculptor Alfred Jacquemar. I give more credence to the Jones hypothesis since the same statues can be found in Hatfield (UK), apparently bearing the same inscriptions as those in Santa Ana.
In view of that, it is clear that these lovely statues were not made explicitly for Las Palmas. It doesn’t really matter. They are now as palmenses as can be. And they surely know which beer to endorse.
“Pff… big deal, Jay. Everyone knows the Tropical dog is the one at Santa Ana.”
OK, so you’re an expert on local brands then. Now let’s play the opposite game. What if I tell you that the parrot in the Casa de Colón was also foreshadowed, in a very similar way, in Chapter 3? Can you guess which local brand I’m talking about?
The Fire Demon 
