Customer Reviews

Return to the Same City

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Paco Ignacio Taibo's existence-beleaguered private eye continues to roam the streets of Mexico City in search of good sense and moral behavior even after his apparent death. The P.I.'s name, Shayne, plays off the traditional P.I. -- represented by Brett Halliday's character Mike Shayne -- and the lone-outsider-as-hero -- represented by Jack Schaeffer's/Alan Ladd's cowboy Shane. With none of the boisterous control of the former and never quite attaining the quiet dignity of the latter, Taibo's Shayne feels the weight of his Mexico City -- one part Chaos Theory, one part Entropy, one part gritty-greedy-urban-monster -- as it bears down on its inhabitants, who look for fun and hope in every unlikely place. Shayne wants things to be simple and to make sense, but they rarely do in his world, no matter how hard he tries to make it so. World weary, witty, and marvelously funny, I'm glad Shayne came back from the dead. I hope we see more of his adventures in translation.

This book will make you laugh and cry . . . but if you are a conservative aging white male you won't appreciate PI Taibo II's extravagant sense of humour.

Surreal and funny, this book is full of atmosphere and presence. Warning: some things don't make perfect sense, but yet again they do. You need to suspend judgment and accept things as they are.

Spanish-born, Mexican-raised author Paco Ignacio Taibo II's philosophical, one-eyed gumshoe Héctor Belascoarán Shayne rises from the dead for another novel. Tranlsated from Spanish, "Return to the Same City" isn't about the physical Mexico City and Acapulco (although it helps to be familiar with their respective politics). Instead, "Return to the Same City" is about Shayne's reacquaint with himself - his life after his death in 1993's "No Happy Ending".
His first case after some recuperation, Shayne (half-Irish, on his mother's side) investigates a woman's claim that her brother-in-law is involved in some shady business. Under multiple pseudonyms, the criminal makes deals with politicians, government agents, and drug dealers. With the help of an alcoholic American reporter, Shayne follows the mysterious man to Acapulco. What's really going on here? Who is this mysterious man? Even better: who is the client?
Allusions to the hard-boiled fiction masters are scattered throughout Taibo's novel, especially that of Raymond Chandler. Shayne thinks to himself that "Chandler forgot to prohibit detectives from getting metaphysical". Well, that's plenty made up for in "Return to the Same City"; Shayne often waxes poetic on his rebirth and on returning to Mexico City.
It's an engaging read, even if the previous novels about Shayne have not been read. It can stand on its own, and may work best this way since his resurrection is glossed over by both author and character.

Unfortunately, this doesn't live up to the admiring blurb on its cover from the author of "Like Water for Chocolate" which calls the author's work "intelligent." The main character is a one-eyed Mexican detective with some far-fetched quirks who thinks in Marxist slogans. This would be fine, except the author has placed him in a predictable Communist morality tale, where the bad guy is an evil Cuban-American "gusano" with ties to the CIA, being pursued by an alcoholic-but-heroic left-wing gringo reporter and our hero. It turns out they are being guided and manipulated by the Castro-Cuban and Sandinista secret police (one of the few realistic touches) to do their dirty work for them. When he discovers this (somewhat after the reader) instead of giving our hero second thoughts this delights him, since he sees it as joining forces with fellow travelers in the global anti-imperialist struggle. Basically, the whole thing is about as intelligent (with about as developed a plot) as a Rius "Marxism for Beginners" comic book. It's a waste of time unless (seriously) you're interested in Marxist literature caricaturing itself.