Customer Reviews

Red April

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Having sat out the guerilla insurgency in Lima, Prosecutor Felix Chacaltana has returned to his hometown of Ayacucho. The Army has crushed the rebellion and the tourists are beginning to return for Ayacucho's famous Holy Week. In the course of a routine murder investigation, the eccentric Prosecutor Chacaltana comes across an incinerated body with a missing arm. The savage mutilation inflicted on the corpse has all the hallmarks of a ritualized Sendero Luminoso killing. The question of whether the guerilla war is re-igniting is at the heart of this prize winning novel.

In the Anglo-American tradition of the crime thriller, there may be corruption but in the end the system works. Criminals are caught and justice is done. There are different rules in the Latin crime novel. The system works but there are a different hidden set of rules that only the insiders know. It is a cynical, old world view of justice. The thrill of the Latin crime novel is experiencing another way to see the world. For those interested in this different perspective, check out the works of Paco Ignacio Taibo(Mexico), Leonard Sciascia(Italy), Rubem Fonseca (Brazil) and Michael Dibdin (Anglo Irish-Italy).

It is estimated that nearly 70,000 Peruvians were killed or dissapeared from 1980 to 2000. Countless additional thousands were injured or severely traumatized as a result of the guerilla war. Along with all the suffering, one of the consequences of the conflict is that Peru has become one of Latin America's literary hot spots. There is nothing like a cruel civil war to inspire literary introspection. Following in the foot steps of Mario Vargas Llosa, Peru is producing talented, world class writers like Alonso Cueto, Jaime Bayly and the gifted Peruvian-American Daniel Alarcon. Santiago Roncagliolo is a major talent and along with his generation of fellow writers, they are putting Peru on the world literary map.

In 2000, associate district prosecutor Felix Saldivar has spent much of his career in Lima avoiding conflict. However, the almost only ash remains of a corpse found ironically on Ash Wednesday in Ayacucho changes his detachment when he is sent by his superiors to lead the official inquiry in his birth place.

Adhering strictly to standard operating procedures, Saldivar interviews the locals, but gets nothing of use from them. He asks Police Captain Pacheco for a copy of their report, but is ignored as none have been filed. Instead the police and the military command ignore his questions and requests. In spite of the evidence he has collected, he rejects the obvious answer that the deceased was a victim of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) terrorists because officially the group no longer exists. However, even Saldivar who buries his head in the sand notices that anyone who chats with him dies. He still writes an inane report with no supporting evidence to validate his claim, but defends the position of the army brass that terrorism no longer exists in Peru. His reward for this is to observe an election in a remote village where violence is the norm as the "nonexistent" Sendero openly operates death squads.

This is a terrific, radically unique Peruvian police procedural that looks deeply at the people ravaged by the brutality of the Fujimori government and the Shining Light; neither side lets human rights stand in the way of achieving their agenda. The whodunit is intriguing as the villagers understand facts do not matter to an authoritarian big brother government obsessed with mistrust and the insurgents are perhaps more paranoid and deadlier. The career bureaucrat is phobic, obsessive, and impulsive with a need to impress, which have nothing to do with the facts. RED APRIL is a profound thriller that is exciting yet insightful with applications to Afghanistan as to how people endure when two adversarial groups pull villagers in opposite directions.

Harriet Klausner

This is a mystery that will probably leave fans of the genre disappointed, and that is why I have only chosen four stars. Like Peru's violent and bloody history, the story is not clear-cut or unequivocal.

For obscure reasons, Felix Chacaltana Saldivar, Associate District Proscutor, requests a transfer from Lima back to Ayacucho, from where he fled at an early age after his mother was killed in a fire. The plot unfolds during Lent in this small Peruvian city, so rich in historical significance. For those readers who are interested, I'll share a few pieces of information that I was driven to look up in order better to relate everything that happens. Ayacucho has been a seat of genocide and conquest from its historical beginnings when early tribal groups were
decimated by the Incas who were decimated by Spanish conquistadors who were finally vanquished in a famous battle at Ayacucho that established Peruvian independence. "Aya" is translated as "dead" or "soul," so the very name of the city contains the idea of death. While Lima became the seat of white- and mestizo-dominated, Spanish-speaking power, rural Ayachucho with its Quenchua-speakers constituted the oppressed and marginalized. It was in Ayacucho that the Shining Path developed, and in such rural areas, the bloodiest violence took place both by and against such terrorists.

Chacaltana becomes involved with serial killings for which the explanation is incoherence. As they proceed, the killings become more barbaric and seem to combine elements of paganism, religious ritual, and violence. Part of solving the mystery involves understanding why people are killed like this. I do not wish to reveal too much for those that might read this book because even though it is really a literary novel, it does take the form of a mystery. Let it suffice to say, in the words of the police captain, that death floats in the air in this city and men lose their heads. The inferences in this novel are very relevant to the current world of terroism and anti-terrorism. It is a novel that will make you think.

Life is a constant struggle for prosecutor Felix Chacaltana Saldivar in Ayacucho. Having recently divorced, he has left Lima for a smaller town and becomes embroiled in political corruption and deceit at the highest levels. Struggling to find his place he is thwarted at every turn, made to accept the status quo and required to go along to keep in the graces of the local militia and police. The story reminded me of David Pearce's Red Riding Quartet, not only in the aspects of his superiors looking the other way, but at the sheer brutality of the deeds he was asked to pretend were not happening for his own good.
As his own investigation into the murders escalates, he exposes additional cover-ups performed by the church and the local priest. When a suspected terrorist is allowed to escape from jail--only to be brutally butchered--and the priest Chacaltana confesses to is tortured and slaughtered in his own church during Holy Week, the prosecutor becomes the pursued, or is he? In his own mind, swamped in confusion, he talks to his recently departed mother and the young girl, Edith, he is trying to court.
As the story builds to a crescendo, we are treated to the written notes of a third party as a clue to who is behind the rumors, the troubles and the murders themselves. Will Chacaltana discover the truth before he becomes the next victim? In an inspiring tale of one man trying to make a difference in this private hell on earth, Roncagliolo presents us with a flawed protagonist that we can relate to and gives us hope for mankind in this political thriller. But do not be fooled by the shy, unassuming attitude of the prosecutor; he is out to get his man no matter the cost, even if it is his own demise.
A brilliant debut novel from one of Latin America's newest and compelling authors.

Red April (Vintage International)

There are points at which this novel loses its thread. But for the most part, it can keep you on the edge of your seat wondering exactly what will happen next and why. Nothing seems to add up, until the last few pages, as the main character tries out various theories.

This novel has been harshly criticized by some in Peru. There are some details of military, police, judiciary and fire arms that are, apparently, in error and which indicate a degree of sloppiness unacceptable in a thriller. (You and I won't notice.) However, their most substantial criticism is that the book trivializes the internal conflict that consumed 70,000 lives in Peru, turning it into merely a distant backdrop for the murder mystery that consumes Chacaltana. The same could be said for crime novels that use WWII, Nazi terror or other horrific backdrops, but those who are so close in time and place to the violence of those years have a right to be critical. Other objections--such as the one that the novel portrays indigenous Peruvians as crude and violent bumpkins who speak Quechua gibberish--I think may be misplaced. As I read it, the novel intends(in part)to portray how the outsider elites--all people from Lima and other parts of the coast--view the indigenous people of the highlands. Even as Chacaltana has to endure the ridicule of army, police and political players, he is not immune to plenty of prejudices of his own because, in essence, he is a Limeño.

Chacaltana is pretty hard to take in his incredible naivete, and some readers have thrown up their hands and thrown out the book. But he is the consummate bureaucrat that Americans have had much less contact with than Latin Americans. He is a pretty strange guy. If you have seen the film "Ojos que no ven" (What the Eyes don''t See) by Peruvian director Francisco Lombardi, I could visualize him as the nerdy clerk in the Ministry of Justice--but with a law degree.

As far as the translation is concerned, the stilted language that one reviewer complained of is due to the intentionally stilted translations of Chacaltana's reports, written in bureaucratic legalese. (See very similar military communiques in Vargas Llosa's "Pantaleon y las visitadoras," hysterically funny in Spanish and much less so in English.) I did find the translation of the mysterious illiterate ramblings (never explained until the end) over the top. These sections could have been done a bit more subtly and still retained the flavor of the original, I think.

Félix Chacaltana Saldívar, the Associate District Prosecutor in the city of Ayachucha in Peru, is tasked with investigating a brutal killing spree that takes place during the time leading up to and including the Holy Week of 2000, culminating on Easter Sunday. The mutilated corpses of the victims bear wounds with religious significance, and Chacaltana wonders whether the murders signal a resurgence of the Shining Path terrorist group, a resurgence the Peruvian government refuses to acknowledge. As Chacaltana's investigation uncovers more uncomfortable facts, he faces increased bureaucratic hurdles and personal danger.

With endearing naiveté, Prosecutor Chacaltana bumbles his way through Peru's corrupt bureaucracy, achieving success through sheer tenacity rather than professional skill. Chacaltana's continuing obsession with his long-dead mother and his romantic interest in a pretty waitress add further dimensions to his likeable character. Roncagliolo's depiction of Ayachucha nicely offsets the citizens' religious devotion with their near constant fear of the city's sinister underbelly. Although Red April has some messy loose ends, the novel is a mostly enjoyable screed against the ineffective Peruvian system of justice knitted together with a suspenseful, quick-paced political thriller.

BRAVO!! Another debut author that can clearly write a stunning Latin American fiction, as well as a political thriller. This book gave me some of Peru's history that I've never known before. I cannot wait for his next book to see how he takes his story line to another thrilling ending and places all the characters exactly where they each belong.

Peru is a beautiful country with an abundance of striking differences in its people and landscape. The one thing that has kept it in shackles is its the inability to look at itself objectively and deal with the realities of injustice and cruelty. This book is like looking through a family album because it is so accurate in its depiction of the government and military life. Yet it also has a tenderness that reveals how people cope with 20% inflation and economic stagnation that results in a complete break down of any hope. I believe this author is amazing at displaying truth and intrigue and I expect even greater works from him. Viva Peru!

First Line: On Wednesday, the eighth day of March, 2000, as he passed through the area surrounding his domicile in the locality of Quinna, Justino Mayta Carazo (31) discovered a body.

Felix Chacaltana Saldivar is an unambitious prosecutor living in Lima, Peru. Haunted by his mother, abandoned by his wife, Felix loves literature and devotes an entire room of his house (and a good percentage of his waking thoughts) to the spirit of his dead mother. For some reason known only to the gods he has been put in charge of a strange murder investigation, which twists and turns to its surprising conclusion.

Well... I'm going to assume it's a surprising conclusion because I just could not finish this book. One part of my brain loved the look into the politics and country of Peru and didn't want to stop reading. The other part of my brain was so disappointed by the main character and the writing style that I did stop.

I'll talk about the writing style first. I should know better than to get a book which contains the following words in its description: "stunning", "self-assured", "clarity of style", "complexity", "riveting", "profound", and "deft artistry". 99% of the time when I read the book, I'm simply stunned and let it go at that. There was a sly, arch tone to the writing that I found alternately confusing and annoying.

If I wanted to be blunt, I'd say that Felix Chacaltana Saldivar was too dumb to live. Evidently he's spent way too much time in that room talking to his dead mother. The room and the talking to the dead may be a cultural tradition, but he carried it to excess.

I reached the point of no return when Felix went to a village to investigate. He had an idea going in that the area was very unstable politically. When he got there, he was told that it, indeed, was a very dangerous place to be. So what does he proceed to do? He takes the moral high ground when questioning people, and he won't stop questioning why laws are not being enforced. Yes, I do have morals, and yes, I do believe in law enforcement-- but not when you're putting people's lives in danger. Felix, having the luck of the naive and stupid, can leave that village and return home. The villagers he questions must remain there and hope they live to see the sun rise in the morning.

Enough of my complaints. I've seen by several other reviews that other people have read and enjoyed Red April. Unless you're the type of reader who is annoyed by many of the same things I outlined above, you may well be one of them. I sincerely hope that you are.

This is a great novel that touches on murder, politics and love. The story is compelling enough that it left me wishing for expansion in certain areas.