DEATH IN VERACRUZ

Name: DEATH IN VERACRUZ
Author: Héctor Aguilar Camín
ISBN: 978-1-936182-92-3

by Héctor Aguilar Camín translated by Chandler Thompson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 5, 2015

This ambitious novel memorably brings together recent history, horrific crimes, and an ever present sense of corruption.

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A reporter investigates corruption and wrestles with complex personal entanglements in this tense novel set in 1970s Mexico.

Aguilar Camín’s novel spans more than a decade in the life of its narrator, an unnamed journalist whose slow ascent toward prominence—one character calls him “a national opinionmaker”—acts as a backdrop for the events that follow. The first chapter traces the narrator’s friend Rojano’s slow rise in politics and sets up the complex dynamic between Rojano and his wife, Anabela, for whom the narrator not-so-secretly pines. What emerges from this is an intricate maze of corruption involving land rights, megalomaniacal union officials, crime scene photos of dubious authenticity, and public figures less than concerned with the public good. One particularly sinister figure is fond of the phrase “whoever can add can divide,” which occurs throughout the book, sounding equally inspirational and threatening. The narrator’s world-weary observations crop up again and again: he notes that a man nicknamed Smiley was thus dubbed after a gunshot to the face, which “left him with an indelible smile that couldn’t be wiped off.” That balance of violence and gallows humor infuses the novel. Another character tells the narrator that “history is full of revolutions the police have outlived,” which furthers the cynical mood. Over the course of the novel, Anabela becomes more and more prominent, and the narrator is often left to puzzle over the motivation behind, and truth of, a series of violent acts in the wake of her clashes with a union leader. Aguilar Camín’s fondness for using specific dates in the narrative furthers the sense of realism, even as the novel’s events become more ambiguous.

This ambitious novel memorably brings together recent history, horrific crimes, and an ever present sense of corruption.

Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-936182-92-3

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Schaffner Press

Review Posted Online: July 14, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015

Categories:

MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | INTERNATIONAL CRIME | GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
DAY IN, DAY OUT
by Héctor Aguilar Camín ; translated by Chandler Thompson

- PROFILES
Héctor Aguilar Camín

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A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

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Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020

Categories:

- BOOK REVIEW
FIRE AND BONES
by Kathy Reichs

- BOOK REVIEW
COLD, COLD BONES
by Kathy Reichs

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BONE CODE
by Kathy Reichs

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.