The Mongolian Conspiracy

September 30, 2013
First published in 1969, this Mexico City noir is a lot of fun and packs an unexpected wallop, despite its Cold War kitsch. Filiberto García, a grizzled hired gun, tries to help foil a suspected plot by Communist Chinese-Mongolians to assassinate the presidents of Mexico and the United States during the latter’s upcoming visit to Mexico City to unveil a statue. Working with agents from the KGB and FBI, García goes deep into the opium dens and restaurants of the city’s Chinatown, where he falls for the beautiful and doomed Marta, a young Chinese woman who brings out García’s dormant chivalrous side. While Bernal (1915–1972) switches freely between third-person and first-person, the style works well and adds a feverish feeling to the novel. The real magic is in the character of García himself, a walking anachronism in the freewheeling counterculture of the late 1960s. This absurdist pastiche is equal parts Richard Stark and Philip Atlee with echoes of Chester Himes and Paco Ignacio Taibo II.

November 1, 2013
A new translation of a 1960s Mexican noir novel. Bernal (1915-1972) was a prolific writer of novels and plays. Silver's translation of what is considered his literary masterpiece, El Complot Mongol (1969), allows a new generation of readers to discover his writing. The tarnished hero is Filiberto Garcia, a Mexico City assassin whose unique skills make him an indispensable tool for the Mexican government. Yet, his propensity to shoot (or stab) first and ask questions later also makes him an uncomfortable reminder of the more tumultuous time of the revolution. The tension between Filiberto's volatile individuality and the government's increasing bureaucracy comes to a head when he is tasked to work alongside FBI and KGB agents to prevent an assassination of the American and Mexican presidents. While he's working with his American and Soviet counterparts in the seedy underworld of Mexico City's Chinatown, his investigation turns up evidence that the plot may, in fact, be much closer to home. In the process, Filiberto meets a girl whose presence causes him to reassess his long-held views on manhood and compassion. Along the way, he discovers that, much to his chagrin, he carries a conscience. As in the pulp novels of yesteryear, through sparse narrative details and fast-paced dialogue, Filiberto endears himself to the reader as that street-hardened detective who can just never shake his sense of justice. In the tradition of the classic detective novel, a fun and action-filled read.

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November 15, 2013
Filiberto Garcia learned his tradekilling peopleas a teenager in the Mexican Revolution. Now (sometime after the Kennedy assassination), he's 60 and still killing peoplefor the Mexico City police. It seems the Russians have warned the U.S. of an assassination plot against the U.S. president on a visit to Mexico City. The Russians say the plot was hatched in China. Filiberto is assigned to work with Russian and American spooks to stop it. While the Cold War adversaries warily measure each other, Filiberto begins to rattle cages in Chinatown, even as he pursues Marta, a beautiful young Chinese woman. His cage rattling immediately produces stiffs. His efforts to bed Marta turn unexpectedly, uncharacteristically, and humorously chivalrous. Bernal published this noir in Mexico in 1969, presaging Paco Ignacio Taibo's H'ctor Belascoarn Shayne and Ken Bruen's tormented ex-Garda, Jack Taylor. The usually dyspeptic Filiberto narrates, and his angry screeds about, well, almost everything recall Taylor's anguished and funny rants. His ideas also reflect Shayne's indictments of Mexican government corruption and repression. International-crime fans will enjoy this one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)