Return to the Same City (Hardcover)

by Paco Ignacio Taibo II (Author), Laura Dail (Translator) "How many times have you died?..." (more)
Key Phrases: woman with the ponytail, gringo reporter, healthy eye, Mexico City, Luke Estrella, Gary Betancourt (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
"How do we coexist without rotting in sadness?" asks private detective Hector Belascoaran Shayne of his beleaguered and beloved Mexico. Not your typical PI, Shayne is prone to bouts of existential crisis. But that doesn't stop him from trying to solve the murder of a Cuban rhumba dancer's wife. Nor does it protect him from a fusillade of bullets fired by a Mariachi band, or from an entanglement with the C.I.A. while in Mexico investigating the woman's death. Paco Ignacio Taibo killed off Shayne in No Happy Ending,but he has resurrected the one-eyed sleuth for Return to the Same City. How? Who knows? A deep thinker and a darkly humorous character, Shayne is the perfect companion for a literary visit to the spiritual side of Mexico.

From Publishers Weekly
Taibo's novels about Mexico City detective Hector Belascoaran Shayne (No Happy Ending) are an addicting import. At first, their hard-boiled surrealistic flights?as if Garcia Marquez had been taking writing lessons from Dashiell Hammett?can strike a reader as excessive and glib, but soon they become part of a beguiling worldview in which everything, including crime and love, are elements in a cosmic joke. So you find here that Hector, left a bullet-riddled corpse in the rain in No Happy Ending, has been miraculously resurrected for another case. It involves a shadowy figure with several names, who seems to have caused the suicide of someone's sister and is being pursued by an alcoholic American reporter with sources in the CIA. Is the many-aliased Luke Estrella also involved in a guns-for-drugs Contra operation? Hector doesn't really care, but sets off in dogged pursuit anyway, to Acapulco, then Tijuana, finally bringing matters to a head in a hilarious climax involving several hired mariachi bands, armed to the teeth, in an empty warehouse. Don't forget the two ducks that live under Hector's bed, and how down he gets when he runs out of Coke. As noted, these tales are an easily acquired taste.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 178 pages
• Publisher: Mysterious Press; Stated First US Printing edition (September 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892965908
• ISBN-13: 978-0892965908
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,782,155 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If Hamlet were a post-modern Mexican private eye, April 29, 1998

By A Customer

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.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars you will find no better mystery/comedy novel., February 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Return to the Same City (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful fun, September 15, 2002

By	Stephan Arndt (Iowa City, IA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Return to the Same City (Mass Market Paperback)

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.