Customer Reviews

The Queen Of The South

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

The drug trade throughout Mexico, Latin America, and the Mediterranean come alive in Arturo Perez-Reverte's latest novel, quite different from his intellectual mysteries. Here he writes the "biography" of Teresa Mendoza, a young woman from Sinaloa, Mexico, who becomes the mastermind of a multimillion dollar drug empire operating from Marbella, Spain. This novel's challenge lies not in an intellectual puzzle, but in understanding the business networks Teresa builds with drug lords from Russia, Italy, Morocco, and Colombia, along with various agents of government whom she buys off. As she becomes a successful businesswoman, known as "The Queen of the South," the suspense develops: Will she stay alive? And how?

The story begins in Mexico when Teresa is twenty-three. Uneducated but attractive, she is in love with Guero Davila, a Chicano pilot involved in shipping coca. When she suddenly receives a phone call telling her to run for her life, she does so, escaping through Mexico City into Spain, and then Morocco. Putting her knowledge of drug transportation to work by involving herself in hash-running between Morocco and Spain, she ends up with a short jail sentence but an important friendship with another inmate, Patty O'Farrell, the rebellious daughter of a wealthy Spanish family. When they are released, they set up a big-time drug trafficking business, with Teresa running the show and becoming, eventually, the person with whom everyone in the business must deal.

Teresa's story is not told in linear fashion. An unnamed speaker/narrator, presumably Perez-Reverte himself, has come to Sinaloa to investigate and describe Teresa Mendoza's life and business. Interviewing everyone with any information, he inserts himself and his interviews into the narrative. Soon the line begins to blur between fiction and fact, since some of the people he interviews, such as the three people to whom he dedicates the novel, are, in fact, real people who are included as characters in the novel. These add depth and a fine sense of realism to the novel.

Although Teresa Mendoza is not a character with whom the reader will identify, the author develops a certain amount of sympathy for her. Teresa is an entrepreneur of great intelligence, and this, combined with her ability to avoid creating any sort of trail that will implicate her legally, keeps her going in her dog-eat-dog world. The novel is episodic but fast paced, despite the sometimes unwelcome intrusions of the narrator/speaker, and Perez-Reverte succeeds in presenting a broad, intriguing picture of the business of drug smuggling and those who make it their careers. Mary Whipple

I remember reading an article in the New York Times a little while ago in which a writer said that he decided whether or not to read a book based on the first sentence. He would continue reading only if he was hooked by this small sample. When I started reading this novel I thought to myself that Perez-Reverte must be of similar beliefs. The start of this work is so strong that it is hard to put it down after reading its first sentence, "The telephone rang, and she knew she was going to die".

The phone call Teresa Mendoza receives is a signal that Guero Davila, her lover, is dead and that she needs to run away. Thus starts a spectacular adventure full of twists and turns that will have the reader looking forward to the next development every step of the way. Guero was a drug dealer that was betraying his bosses, so when they discovered him, he was murdered and they proceeded to go after Teresa.

An anonymous writer who is doing research and writing a book on the life of this mysterious woman tells part of the story. As usual, Perez-Reverte goes back and forth in the story, mixing elements from different time periods relating to the main character's life. In this case, we soon learn that the writer meets Teresa twelve years after Guero's death when she is involved in a difficult situation with the Federales in Culiacan, Mexico. Therefore, the author is letting us know that the ending may be in line with his usual pattern: bitter-sweet.

After that interlude, Perez-Reverte goes back to the moment in which Teresa is forced to run and we are taken along in a magnificent roller-coaster ride that will show us how this character changes and evolves, fighting with her destiny and trying to survive. The author's great writing skills help in making us feel as if we were right in the middle of the action, and we find ourselves rooting for a woman that ends up involved in the world of drugs. Perez-Reverte also does a very good job in describing settings and people in places like Mexico and the US, immersing the reader in the ambiance of these locations.

As to our main character, one thing is certain, Teresa learned her lesson from her experience with Guero, and now she decides to take control of her life: "She was never going to wait for anybody again, watching telenovelas in some house in some city somewhere". This is the essence behind this main character, and whether you like the book or not will depend on how much you like Teresa, a strong and focused woman, who takes life as it was dealt to her and who has a significant amount of inner conflicts. As far as I am concerned, this character has enough interest by itself so as to make this one of the best books of 2004.

I have read every Perez-Reverte novel . . . because he brought to life the worlds of antiquarian books, paintings, old fencing masters, chess, crumbling churches and treasure maps. All except one -- The Queen of the South. I balked because it was about drug running-- a subject I have never been interested in. (I think the closest I got to anything related to recreational drugs was growing a "false aralia" houseplant at work and fooling people into thinking I was growing "weed" right in front of the boss.)

It was months after it came out when I finally decided to pick it up. (My problem, as a reader, is that I ALWAYS FINISH a book, no matter how bad or boring it is. Because I was never going to let the 8 bucks I spent on it -- go to waste.) So I was afraid I was going to be stuck with a book that would put me to sleep for weeks. I was WRONG.

Arturo Perez-Reverte has done it again! He has enthralled me with the story of Teresa Mendoza. She starts out as the girlfriend of Guero Davila, a small plane pilot who flew drug shipments between Colombia and the U.S. He is killed (in flashback) and her story begins when she flees Sinaloa.

Reverte's writing is riveting. He tells of her incredible rise in the world of drug trafficking . . . she finds love (of sorts)again with Santiago, a boat driver; fate, Edmond Dantes and a lost "treasure" finds her in the form of a wealthy prison inmate, Patty O'Farrell. Teresa leverages her new-found wealth into power among the drug traffickers. And there's more betrayal and tragedy. It just doesn't stop. Not a dull moment!

There's a subtle parallel to the novel called The Count of Monte Cristo but not much because while the Monte Cristo book is almost entirely about revenge, Teresa's story will end with a "settling of debts." In the most spectacular fashion.

I got particularly attached to her bodyguard--- Pote Galvez whose fate was almost poetic and gut-wrenching and a 3-hanky event.

Read the Song of Teresa! You won't regret it. I found myself using the colorful phrases that Teresa used . . . while I was reading. (Although I recommend not muttering it during a staff meeting. Thankfully my boss only knows German.)

After carving out a solid niche for himself in the "intellectual thriller" genre by writing a number of entertainments (some good, some not) revolving around the arcane and esoteric, bestselling Spanish novelist Perez-Reverte shifts gears here with a book that is neither thriller nor obsessed with high culture paraphernalia. Quite the contrary, this is the tale of a poor, uneducated Mexican girl who, over the course of twelve years, manages to become a hugely wealthy narcotics transporter. The story of Theresa Mendoza is told partially from her perspective as events happen, and partially by an investigative reporter who is trying to write a book about her and is interviewing anyone once connected to her. Before becoming a novelist, Perez-Reverte was a well-known journalist, and his former profession informs the entire book as his fictional journalist connects the dots, from Sinaloa, Mexico to Morocco to Marbella, Spain. Some readers seem not to care for the alternating voices, but it adds much needed depth and texture to what is otherwise a fairly flat and straightforward rags to riches story.

However, unlike most gutter to penthouse tales, Theresa is not a character who always had large dreams and wanted to be "king of the world". Rather, her story shows her to be an emotionally dead soul who does whatever it takes to survive in the harsh environment she inhabits. While this is a nice change of pace from the usual Scarface hysterics, her cool reserve also means that there's no way for the reader to connect with her (unless you, too, have been on the run from hitmen). Which is not to say that she isn't believable, it's just that she's a character with a single motivation, survival, and this one track detachment gets kind of lame as she grows more and more powerful. While one can sympathize with her plight, she's not particularly sympathetic or unsympathetic--she's simply...present. Not that Perez-Reverte doesn't gamely try to make her sympathetic by showing her grant mercy more than once, and exhibit rather foolish loyalty, as well as refusing to transport heroin (since it's socially destructive, as opposed to hash and cocaine!), but this is all rather disingenuous. And contrary to what some reviewers have written, he definitely does play up her past: her dirt-poor childhood and alcoholic mother are alluded to more than once, as is her sexual abuse as a small girl. But none of this is really enough to make the reader care about a character who spends the entire story not understanding her own choices.

The book is at its best when it wallows in the details of the international drug trade, all the intricacies and logistics of getting drug A to point B--small planes, speedboats, customs helicopters, dummy ships--it all reeks of heavy research. And at the heart of it all is epic corruption on all sides. The various locales are also well rendered, from the Mexican state capital of Culiacan to the sleazy ports of Spain and Morocco, and finally the gleaming high life of Marbella. The supporting cast of characters is quite good, from Theresa's various boyfriends, to her stoic bodyguard, and the amiable Russian gangster who acts as mentor. But as in the movies, it's never a good thing when the bit players have more personality than the lead. Stylistically, Perez-Reverte does try a few tricks, such as weaving "The Count of Monte Cristo" into the plot, and making Mexican narcocorridos a recurring (and tiresome) element. (Those interested in narcocorridos should check out Elijah Wald's aptly titled book Narcocorridos.) So, there's a lot to like in the book, however the central character and storyline are flat and lifeless.

I wrote it once and I will write it again: the perfect novel is one that combines literary aspirations with an engaging plot, thus mixing the high-brow (the tone) with the low-brow (the cheap thrills of a great best-seller). Arturo Perez Reverte has by now carved a career out of this thin balance, being the master of the so-called literary best-seller.

"The Queen of the South" is a brilliant tale about a memorable character, a narco's morra (girlfriend) who is forced to escape her native Mexico and then turns into a drug-lord of her own. She's a complex, intriguing character, obviously not free from many ambiguous facets.

The tale is gripping, believable and, as one has come to expect from APR, very well written.

Highly recommended

The telephone rang, and she knew she was going to die.

Talk about a line to draw a reader into a story! And it did pull me into the first chapter.

Then I paused. What, he's making drug-scum into heroes and heroines? I didn't really want to go on. Yet, I couldn't resist the appeal of Perez-Reverte's prose. I'm glad I didn't. Because "The Queen of the South" is another winner by an author I'm really beginning to like.

"Queen" is a look into the sordid world of drug smugglers on two continents and, despite my distaste for the real thing, it's an engrossing romp. As I did, you may not find Teresa Mendoza appealing at first. But, she'll grow on you as you watch her grow from a teenaged narco's morra into a sophisticated woman worthy of her own corrido as she and her faithful bodyguard Pote facedown their enemies alone.

Perez-Reverte even throws in a surprise late in the book, which puts another light on his hero and heroine. But, I can't get into that without spoiling the story for others.

The author employs a technique in which the tale is told in alternate chapters by Teresa and an anonymous reporter, a method which adds a sense of reality to the tale.

In Perez-Reverte's earlier work he studied a subject throughly and then used that knowledge to build the story within the subject giving the reader great subject detail along with the story. It worked well in The Flanders Panel, Club Dumas, The Seville Communion, worked horribly against him in the Fencing Master, was distracting in The Nautical Chart. In The Queen of The South the author has studied the drug trade, its sex, violence, business ways, and music but this time instead he has a novel that takes off running and keeps moving, driven by a strong female lead character and well drawn supporting figures that displays his knowledge without slowing down. This book has a different translator than the others, and maybe that makes some of the difference in conveying the action and roughness of the story. It goes front to back without ever stumbling, faster paced than his other novels. If he was inspired by Dan Brown he took the inspiration and made it his own, and definitely for the better.

If you haven't read anything by Mr. Perez-Reverte and are coming into this one because of his deservedly excellent reputation, you might find yourself disappointed. Although the story would seem to have all the right ingredients, it remains flat, and in the end it's not really clear what his purpose was in writing it.

It is the story of the career of a young and attractive but otherwise non-descript Mexican woman who becomes a very powerful and influential drug lord after moving to Spain. The opening pages are quite exciting. She is taking a shower, in her pleasant home, on an otherwise normal day, when her phone rings. This is a pre-arranged signal between her and her drug-running boyfriend, and which means that he has probably been killed--or soon will be--and that she will be next. She must clear out of there, and fast.

She escapes, with help, and ends up working as a cashier in a nightclub on the southern tip of Spain. Soon she meets another drug-smuggler type who becomes her boyfriend only this time, she takes part in his activities. Disaster strikes, and she ends up being jailed, a not so unfortunate event in that she meets an inmate who is taken with her and who is keeping a marvelous secret. This is her lucky break. From there it is a meeting with a Russian gangster, a rise in status, and eventually deals and transgressions with the most powerful Italian, Colombian, and Spanish drug cartels.

It's almost like a primer. First, she learns about the drug business, then she learns about money, then she learns about smuggling, then she makes connections. And while all this is going on, several tragic events befall her which turn her into the stoic, single-minded, cold-hearted person she needs to be in order to achieve success.

It all makes sense. Too much sense, in fact, and this is the problem. We've heard this story before. What makes the story of Theresa Mendoza so special that we have to hear it again? Other than the fact that she is an attractive woman, not much. And, of course, she's fictional. She's not even real.

Compounding the problem is the novel's framing device, which are the first-person interjections of a journalist who's writing her story. The plot is interrupted often as he tells of interviews he has with various people who knew or knew of Theresa, what they think of her, and what he thinks of them. This device gives a documentary-type feel to the proceedings that only add to the, "why am I reading this?" attitude already nagging at the reader. Unfortunately, it slows things down and could have been excised entirely.

This isn't a bad novel. The characters, setting and situation are all believable and detailed and the story is at least moderately interesting. Mr. Perez-Reverte is certainly competent. But there's no spark, no sense of excitement, no deep intrigue to keep you awake late into the night. For that, try The Club Dumas, The Fencing Master, or The Nautical Chart. If you haven't read any of his novels yet, start with one of those.

I have read Perez-Reverte's "The Fencing Master" and "The
Nautical Chart". I consider these books intellectual noir,
whose plot revolves, in part, around a feme fatal. The
beautiful faithless women in these book are one dimensional.
Even in "The Nautical Chart", where the book revolves around
the beautiful Tanger, we never really get a feeling for who
she is. Coy, the man who loves her, spends the book trying
to understand her. But in the end Coy only has a collection
of observations that never really add up to a whole.

Having read two books by Perez-Reverte where the women were
beautiful and dangerous characters without full dimension
I wondered if Perez-Reverte could actually write about a
three dimensional women. The answer has been provided in
"The Queen of the South".

The central character is Teresa, a complex woman with a
complex history. By the end of the book I felt that
Perez-Reverte has created a character that could have lived

beyond the pages of the book. Before becoming a novelist
Perez-Reverte was a new reporter and it shows in this book.
When I finished reading the last page, I had the strange
feeling that the events recounted really could have happened
exactly as outlined. This was reinforced by the fact that
Perez-Reverte has incorporated some actual people into his
story.

Teresa as a dark character and by the end of
the book she has blood on her hands. Perhaps because
Perez-Reverte provides such an intimate portrait of Teresa
I was unable to see her as evil, despite some of her actions.
We see Teresa grow from a scared young woman to full adulthood
into a sophisticated woman.

The story of "The Queen of the South" is told by a reporter
and the detail in which the world of drug running is
described in amazing detail. Like Fredrick Forsyth's "Odessa
File", one is reading a novelization of actual reality.
The story is gripping. From the start we feel that Teresa

is living on borrowed time. There is nothing of the slow
buildup that exists in "The Fencing Master". This book
is a page turner from the start.

In Queen of the South, Arturo Perez Reverte has moved from the rarified world of antique book sellers (Club Dumas), art historians,(Flanders Panel) and duelists (Fencing Master) to the gritty world of international drug trafficking. With this novel, Perez Reverte capitalizes in our fascination with crime. Not crime as practiced by the legions of petty criminals but high crime as practiced by international drug smugglers and mafia dons.

The novel's hero, Teresa Mendoza begins her story as the girl friend of a small time Mexican narco. With his murder, she is forced to flee Mexico. She works her way up from a barkeep in Spanish Morocco to the "Queen of the South", the most important smuggler of drugs in the Mediterranean. All this, in only twelve years.

Perez Reverte is an old fashioned story teller in the 19th Century tradition of Dumas or Hugo. He is very talented writer and uses all of his consierable skill to keep this story moving. There are plenty of well written scenes that get the heart beating and the hairs on the back of the neck to stand up. If I were rating this story on sheer writing talent, the Queen of the South would get five plus stars.

However, what keeps the Queen of the South from being a really good novel is the sense that the story is not plausable. For this type of story to work, Perez Reverte should take his cue from Mexico's Narco Corridos. At the end of a ballad by Los Tigres del Norte, you can always turn to the person sitting next to you and say, "Dicen que fue cierto" or They say it really happened.

The first two thirds of the novel are terrific. Perez Reverte has the feel of Sinaloa and the Straights of Gibralter just right. He started to lose me once Teresa begins her meteoric rise to the top of the drug trade. It is as though she goes from being a three dimensional character to a stereotype of a drug lord. It is as though Perez Reverte lost his story telling nerve.

In the greatest novel of this genre "The Godfather", Mario Puzo understood the importance of taking his time to tell the story of the rise of Vito Corleone. Like Teresa Mendoza, Vito Corleone must flee his homeland to escape assasins. Through cunning, hard work and violence, he rises from obscurity to become the head of a crime organization. Don Corleone's rise to power takes decades and his wholly believable. He is a believable character from start to finish. The Godfather in both its novel and movie form will be around for generations. While a good read, The Queen of the South's destiny is to be an ephemeral novel. Unfortunately, Perez Reverte did not have the nerve to make this a great novel.