Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Rafael Bernal, The Mongolian Conspiracy ****

A rough-hewn Mexico City hit man investigates reports of a plot to assassinate the presidents of Mexico and the United States. He might be in over his head with the international intrigue, but he knows the locals in Chinatown who appear to be at the heart of the plan.

The Mongolian Conspiracy is very much like a Dashiell Hammett book, if Hammett were writing in Mexico in the late 1960s and had a fondness for the word pinche. The story structure, the shifting alliances of our hero, and the questioning of authority all reminded me of Red Harvest. The only thing I didn't care for was how the writing shifted constantly and awkwardly between the third person and first person:
Garcia was going to say that he'd never used one, but then he remembered the one time he had. It was in Huasteca, and I was carrying out orders.
Within its solid thriller plot, The Mongolian Conspiracy sneaks in ideas about the rule of law versus the rule of action. Garcia is a former revolutionary who laments the bureaucratic nature of modern Mexican society and recognizes himself as a throwback and as a necessary evil for his superiors. As the story unfolds, though, he gains some respect for the rule of law.

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