Paco Ignacio Taibo II

A stylized reissue—featuring bonus materials, including an interview with Subcomandante Marcos by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.In alternating chapters, Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos and the consistently excellent Paco Ignacio Taibo II create an uproarious murder mystery with two intersecting storylines. The chapters written by the famously masked Marcos originate in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico. There, the fictional "Subcomandante Marcos" assigns Elias Contreras—an odd but charming mountain man—to travel to Mexico City in search of an elusive and hideous murderer named "Morales." The second story line, penned by Taibo, stars his famous series detective Hector Belascoaran Shayne. The two stories collide absurdly and dramatically in the urban sprawl of Mexico City . . . Readers expecting political heavy-handedness will be disarmed by the humility and playful self-mocking that runs throughout the book.

"Although passable as a literary work and perhaps entertaining, cannot be compared to recent biographies by Anderson (item #bi 97013299#) and Castañeda (item #bi 97015399#)"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

"In 1991, Paco Taibo II wrote The Shadow of a Shadow, a book about four men who meet to play dominos in a hotel bar in Mexico City. The time is 1922, and the men are a motley group - a poet who makes a living writing advertisements for patent medicine, a radical Chinese-Mexican union organizer, a lawyer who represents prostitutes, and a newspaper crime reporter who churns out pages of copy "like links of sausage in a chorizo factory." As the story builds, the crime novel becomes a tale of international intrigue.". "Returning as Shadows revisits these men nearly twenty years later. Much has changed, in the world and for the four friends. War rages in Europe while the world waits for the inevitable entry of the United States. German agents throng Mexico City, working to bring America's southern neighbor into the Axis.". "And the four men? They've gone four different ways. Returning as Shadows goes back and forth between these men's lives, slowly drawing the threads back together. Surprises keep popping up. For example, Ernest Hemingway, having overindulged at his Cuban hacienda, is suddenly transported into a poker game with one of the characters."--BOOK JACKET.

"The sweetheart of Hector Belascoaran Shayne's adolescence - the same one who's become a famous Mexican movie star - has disappeared into the magical reality of the U.S./Mexico border. Hector wanders la frontera looking for her. He falls in and out of love, he talks with the ghost of Pancho Villa, he asks lonely questions about the dirty business of narcotraficantes, and he listens closely to the story of the whores of Zacatecas. They, like his sweetheart, seem to have disappeared forever."--BOOK JACKET.

"Another entertaining, fast-paced detective story (1996), featuring protagonist José Daniel Fierro. Novel set alternately in today's Mexico City and Ciudad Juárez, Renaissance Italy, and modern Barcelona follows a suspenseful plot combined with political and social commentary. Excellent colloquial translation; no notes. Author's endnote sheds light on some characters and references"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

"This interview provides excellent insights into the life of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano, leader of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática. Discusses his personal and political motivations, his experience as the son of a Mexican president, and the consequences of this upbringing"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57.

In Santa Ana, Mexico, the police chief, Jose Daniel Fiero, a former crime writer, investigates the death of an American woman photographer, stabbed and left naked at the foot of a church altar. By the author of No Happy Ending.

"In Mexico City on the night of October 2, 1968, at least two hundred students - among thousands protesting election fraud and campaigning for university reform - were shot dead in a bloody showdown with government troops in Tlatelolco Square. Hundreds more were arrested, and imprisoned for years. Yet these events are nowhere to be found in official histories: that very night the bodies were collected and trucked away and the cobblestones washed clean, and government denial of all involvement began. To this day no one has been held accountable for the official acts of savagery." "One member of the crowd that night, Paco Taibo, would become an international literary figure; '68 is his account of the events of October 2, and of the student movement that preceded them, available for the first time in English, with a new epilogue by the author. In provocative, anecdotal prose, Taibo here claims for history "one more of the many unredeemed and sleepless ghosts that live in our lands.""--BOOK JACKET.