Taibo II, Paco Ignacio

New York. 1994. October 1994. Mysterious Press. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket . 0892965185. Translated from the Spanish by Beth Henson. 209 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Jose Ortega & Rachel McClain. Jacket illustration by Jose Ortega. keywords: Mystery Translated Mexico Literature Latin America. FROM THE PUBLISHER - Jose Daniel Fierro is Mexico's most celebrated author of police thrillers. He's about to become something more. In the graffiti-festooned mining city of Santa Ana, three hundred years of oppression had led to a radical people's government. The brutal ruling class waits for its chance to crash back in - while the town's police chiefs keep getting killed. On the theory that Jose Daniel is too well-known to be murdered, the man of letters is invited by the city leaders to be the latest chief. On a whim, he accepts. Jose Daniel knows what Robert Mitchum would say when confronted by a beautiful amoral woman. He knows how Ross MacDonald might describe an encounter with a hit man. But when it comes to handguns, fingerprints, and dead bodies, the mystery writer is woefully unprepared. On his side he has a fearless marksman named Blind Man, a radio broadcaster who is also a master of propaganda, and an assortment of eccentric deputies. He needs them all. For gunmen interrupt his dinner with a hail of lead, a beautiful gringa turns up butchered in church, and a fearsome killer is found slain in the center of a ring of a flea-bitten circus. Now, in a web of madcap crime and deadly conspiracy, Jose Daniel is discovering the first essential truth about police work. Like life itself, the more you think you know the more you have to learn. LIFE ITSELF has echoes of Kafka, Conrad, and Marquez. It is at the same time a gripping mystery, a raucous adventures, a dark comedy, and a violent and haunting political indictment of the state of modern-day Mexico. inventory #20748 ISBN: 0892965185.