In his first novel, 33 bells, Miren Gorrotxategi has created a gray and dark atmosphere. Fermin meets a human skull that works to install a water tank on the grounds of the farmhouse. The problem of the skull will bring the revitalization of some frozen relationships long ago: Fermin’s and Karmen’s boyfriends call his son Nestor and he, by the way, contacts his ex-girlfriend Berta, who is engaged in digging. The event brings us to the Garizmendi farmhouse, but also to other spaces in the surroundings: the church, the cemetery and Garizmendi-Berria (i.e., the house of the twin brother of Fermín). In this geography, it has created an environment permeated by bone bells and dances, representing an unstable terrain, with familiar secrets and timos of groundwater, and an atmosphere of mistrust. As the mystery of the skull unfolds, the silenced and buried past is crumbling in the area of Garizmendi, as the bodies flood the surface.

The novel revolves around black neorruralism and recalls the novels that approached neorruralism in the 1980s, such as the betting atmosphere of the novel aidanez (1983) or the black tint of the novel Kcappo (1985). In the novel 33 ezkil, in addition to reflecting the hardness of the rural environment, the culture of betting and other customs has been translated: heritage and mastery, rivalry, envy and hatreds, the clash between rural life and local life, beliefs and witchcraft, etc.

In this novel, the reader does not make the way with the researchers, as is customary in the black novel. In fact, there are a couple of couples trying to solve the case: former lovers (Nestor and Berta) and ertzainas (Kortazar and Ezpeleta), so there is not a single line of investigation, and the narrator tells us the facts from the perspective of all the characters. To do this, two narrative lines have been built: in one, it is a process of resolving the issue; in the other, the narration makes the leap into the past of the characters. The stories of intrigue are always a great challenge: you have to get right in the dosing of information and you have to release the knots convincingly. The combination of two narrative lines also increases the challenge. Towards the end, some knots may have been released too quickly, but in general, Miren Gorrotxategi has responded well to the challenge and has been able to complete the puzzle of the facts, keeping the curiosity. He has shown skill in the construction of scenes and in the progressive unraveling of the character's personality, as well as in the construction of that environment of mystery.