I was eager to read this book when I stumbled across it on Goodreads. Solares’ The Black Minutes was one of my favorite reads from a few years ago. The first third of this book is a bit rocky with the writing being very uneven. I chalked it up to a bad translation, but the book suddenly kicks into high gear and the uneven writing completely disappeared. I wonder if it was actually some sort of stylistic choice?

At any rate, this was a very good crime novel set in Mexico. I found this to be a much more engaging and sympathetic novel than those by American writers covering the same territory (Don Winslow for one, who comes off as preachy and a blowhard). Solares really deserves to be discovered by a wider audience: nuanced crime novels with some interesting narrative structures. Good stuff.