The Invisible Guardian

The Invisible Guardian is a 2017 Spanish thriller film directed by Fernando González Molina based on the eponymous novel by Dolores Redondo. It was followed by two sequels, The Legacy of the Bones and Offering to the Storm. Plot Policía Foral inspector Amaia Salazar, a former FBI agent, lives in Pamplona with her American husband, James, an artist. She returns to her hometown of Baztan, in Navarre, to investigate the murder of a young teen, 13-year-old Ainhoa Elizasu. Ainhoa was found naked and posed in the woods, her face scrubbed clean of makeup and her hair neatly arranged, and a cake placed on her shaved pubis, with her heels taken off. Amaia links this with the death six weeks earlier of Carla Huarte, who was strangled with the same type of rope, and fears a serial killer may be at work. Both bodies were covered with hairs from multiple animals, an oddity as none of the bodies show marks from any animals. Amaia and James move in with her Aunt Engrasi, who raised her for most of her life. She is greeted warmly by her sister Rosaura, who is staying with Engrasi because of a fight with her husband, Freddy. Amaia's relationship is strained with her elder sister Flora, who, with Rosaura, now runs the family business, a commercial bakery. Flora is divorced from her ex-husband, Victor, and is resentful of Amaia, who is trying to start a family. Flora accuses Amaia of abandoning their mentally ill and abusive mother, Rosario, now in a nursing home, even though she has a pathological hatred for Amaia. James is shocked to find out that Rosario is not dead, as Amaia claimed. Amaia instructs police officer Jonan Etxaide to look back 20 years for similar patterns and other events occurring in Baztan. He connects several murders she believes could have been committed by the same killer. She believes she is looking for an older male who was likely sexually repressed in his youth and who would be familiar to the girls, making it likely they would go willingly with him.