Frontera Dreams

If you haven’t yet read any of Paco Taibo’s Hector Beascoaran Shayne detective novels yet, be prepared for something wildly different than your usual detective fare. This is so much more than a mystery.

In Frontera Dreams, Hector is asked by the daughter of his old high school sweetheart now a big movie star, to track down her mother whom she feels is in danger. He leaves his Mexico City and heads out for the border looking for her. As he travels through the villages heading for the border, he travels through his memories as well. There is the reference to Tlateloco, the Mexico of the late 60’s and his memories of the sweetheart turned actress with the unlikely name of Natalia Smith-Corona.

The one-eyed, much scarred Shane battles with narcotraficantes, comtemplates the life these border people have, communes with the ghost of none other than Pancho Villa, recites and remembers poetry, hears the story of the 300 missing Zacatecas prostitutes and learns of the legend of the Chinese guy that jumped the fence of the US /Mexico border seven times in one day all the while doing his job finding Natalia.

Paco Ignacio Taibo, II is one of Mexico’s foremost writers. His character Shane has been knifed, scarred, wounded, killed – yes killed and resurrected by Taibo yet again. This story doesn’t have the feel of the other Shane novels, but those take place in Mexico City where the pace is different. Taibo captures the meandering crazy desperation of the border towns expertly in this literary and intense novel.

The Queen of the South

The Queen of the South is a fast-paced thriller with the most unlikely of heroines, Teresa Mendoza, the girlfriend of a drug runner and pilot, Guero Davila in Sinaloa, Mexico. The book starts with Teresa’s special phone ringing, the phone that is the indication her lover is dead and they are coming for her. With the ringing of the phone, we are thrust into Teresa’s world, one of drug trafikkers, killers and mafiosos. Teresa has to think fast, run fast and outwit the people coming to kill her simply because she was Davila’s woman. Riverte takes us on a wild chase with this daring and soon to be dangerous woman. We explore the underbelly of Mexico, Spain and Morocco as Teresa’s life changes and she becomes a woman to be reckoned with – The Queen of the South.

At times frightening and always thrilling the book spans 12 years and follows Teresa and a host of characters. There is the frantic escape from Culiacan, the deadly boat race from the law while running drugs with her new lover, a boat ride that lands her in prison and many other fascinating bits of her life.

Riverte, who unabashedly emulates Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo creates the most amazing Edmund Dantes in Teresa. The Chateau D’If is the prison El Puerto de Santa Maria, where Teresa meets her spoiled drug addicted partner Patty who will eventually lead her to a fortune. Teresa, however becomes the leader and dominates the world in which Patty taught her to live in.

The Queen of the South is a fascinating look in the world of the underbelly of the world we live in. Teresa is not your typical character and honestly, I didn’t like her, but you don’t have to like her to be caught up in her world, to be swept away before you know it. Arturo Perez-Riverte has written yet another captivating and interesting novel with fast-paced narrative, elaborate story and scary characters.