The Dead Women of Juárez

Sam Hawken. Serpent’s Tail, $14.95 ISBN 978-1-84668-774-7

Hawken’s debut novel ambitiously confronts a real-life scandal, the many, mostly unsolved murders of women in Ciudad Juárez since the early 1990s, previously tackled by Roberto Bolaño’s sprawling 2666. The two heroes, down-and-out American boxer Kelly Courter and Mexican police detective Rafael Sevilla, dig into the drug-related violence in the Mexican border city, crimes that in recent years have overshadowed the so-called feminicidios. On occasion, Rafael presses Kelly, who just wants to eke out a humble existence in Ciudad Juárez, about his friend Estéban, a smalltime drug dealer. Worse trouble lies ahead because of the role of Paloma, Kelly’s girlfriend and Estéban’s sister, in the victim-advocacy group Mujeres Sin Voces. After a low-key opening section that sketches Ciudad Juárez’s bleak industrial landscape, the book roars into gear as a bluntly forceful hard-boiled thriller that also manages to address, movingly and respectfully, its troubling subject matter. Agent: Svetlana Pironko, Author Rights Agency. (Sept.)

Reviewed on: 06/11/2012

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Paperback - 978-1-84668-773-0