Almería is, I was shocked to realised this week, quickly becoming famous across Spain for rather horrific and sad deaths.
In fact, in the last three months Almería appears to have been dominating the headlines across Spain.
In December we had the shocking murder suicide when 72 year old Antonio killed his wife and disabled 80 year old brother before killing himself, in Cóbdar.
We then had the tragedy of the coastguard helicopter crash off our coast – when three brave men lost their lives whilst saving others.
We had the rather shocking case (it happened in 2004, but the judge only ruled last month in the case) of 13 youths in Almería who kicked a tramp to death.
A Police Inspector is found guilty of blackmailing a vulnerable woman under his protection to extort money.
Last week, a woman in Sorbas killed her mother and her daughter before committing suicide.
Three people were murdered, two of them wives, in January alone in the capital city.
In fact, by the 18th of February, across Spain, 6 women had been killed by their partners.
2 of those (33,3%) were in Almería. 2 more in Madrid, 1 in Mallorca, 1 in Barcelona.
Which means little Almería is on par with the giant cosmopolitan melting pot that is Madrid when it comes to violent husbands.
And between 2005-2008, Almería was consistently the Andalucian province with the second highest rate of domestic murders.
Which is starting to lead some Andalucian commentators to ask why Almería is surging ahead in the murder stakes.
Some blame immigration. Other say that a new generation of women are more likely to take recourse to the law when suffering ill treatment, rather than quietly accepting it.
None of this is good, although only by getting the statistics out in the air can we find ways of dealing with the problem.
The real question, is why is Almería suffering these attacks recently?
Frankly, I don’t know. Possibly the reporting of these events makes it more likely they will occur again locally as it gives unstable people the idea? Better reporting of smaller cases?
Still, at least we had the Euromillion winner recently, which cheered us all up.