Some Clouds: A Héctor Belascoarán Shayne Detective Novel

By Paco Ignacio Taibo II

Mexico City independent detective Héctor Belascoarán Shayne is summoned back home from vacation by his sister, whose childhood friend Anita has been raped and nearly killed by unknown assailants. Héctor soon discovers that Anita, recently married into the wealthy Costa family, has just seen her husband and his two brothers systematically murdered. Now, Anita stands in line to receive a legacy of some 200 million pesos if she can stay alive long enough to receive it.
During his investigation, Héctor trades stories with novelist Paco Ignacio (who bears no little resemblance to Taibo), who is writing a crime novel based upon the recent murder of fourteen narcotraficantes and has traced the crime directly back to Judicial Police Commander Saavedra.
Taibo weaves these two seemingly disparate threads together into a novel that stretches the boundaries of the crime genre and poses the question: how does a detective operate in a society in which the social and political institutions designed to protect the people are hopelessly corrupt?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Release date: Jul 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781615953523

Paco Ignacio Taibo II

Paco Ignacio Taibo II, or PIT, was born in Gijón, Spain in 1949, before fleeing Franco’s dictatorship with his family in 1958. He has resided in Mexico City ever since, where he’s built a career as a writer, journalist, historian, and perhaps most crucially, a founder of the neopolicial genre in Latin America. His books have been published in twenty-nine countries and translated into nearly as many languages. In addition to being a prolific writer, he is an active member of the international crime writing community and organizes Semana Negra or “Noir Week” in his native Gijón. He has won the Latin American Dashiell Hammett Prize three times, as well as the Mexican Premio Planeta, and several other awards for international crime fiction.

Reviews for Some Clouds

[condorena · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hector Belascoaran Shayne is not named after the gunman of the famous western 'Shane' but he is like him in that he is up against a gang of pure evil and corruption that is quite powerful. He also knows that the police are behind about seventy six percent of the serious crime in Mexico so it is hard to find any one to wear the white hat. It is a hard job but he is going to do it. He plans to avenge the brutal attack on a childhood friend and hopes to live to tell the tale.
The odds are not in his favor.