Plenty of crime novels open with a corpse. This one opens with a man studying his own face, counting the silver creeping into his hair, wondering how many good years his looks have left. He is Ulises, a small-time swindler in 1943 Mexico City who courts lonely women by mail and empties their bank accounts. Broke after a job collapsed, he picks his next target by the price of the train fare. The ticket to a foggy mountain town in Veracruz costs less, so Veracruz wins. With that one shabby, telling decision, The Intrigue by Silvia Moreno-Garcia gets its claws in you.<\/p>\n
Ulises turns up at a fading boardinghouse expecting an easy mark. He finds Perla Incl\u00e1n instead: a coffee heiress turned landlady with a rigid back, a silver crucifix, and a temper kept on a tight rein. He also finds In\u00e9s, Perla\u2019s niece, treated as unpaid help and guarded like contraband. In\u00e9s reads him inside a day. Rather than warn her aunt, she names her terms: cut me in, and I will help you land her.<\/p>\n
From there the book becomes a three-cornered contest of hunger and arithmetic, where a polite supper conceals a ledger and every gallant line carries a price tag. Moreno-Garcia keeps the scheme\u2019s gears tight and the motives cloudy. Out of respect for the surprises, I will say only this: Perla is no gullible old maid, and a plan this tidy was never built to stay tidy.<\/p>\n
Half the pleasure sits in the setting. Puerco Ahogado, which translates to \u201cDrowned Pig,\u201d is invented, though readers who know Xalapa will spot its skeleton: a settlement clinging to a mountainside under endless drizzle, heavy with orchids, coffee, and rumor. Moreno-Garcia writes the fog as a living thing, veiling cobblestones and softening the edges of a house full of moth-eaten grandeur. The Second World War hums in the background through blackout drills and newspaper dread, and the era comes alive in small, exact touches: cinema afternoons, danz\u00f3n<\/em> at the dance hall, film stars traded like currency in a baker\u2019s chatter. It is period writing that never reads like a museum plaque.<\/p>\n The three leads are the real machinery of The Intrigue by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and each one resists easy sympathy:<\/p>\n Ulises<\/strong> is a swindler who is not much good at swindling. He inherited his father\u2019s fine manners and languages but not the killer instinct, and that gap between his self-image and his talent gives him a sad, funny, human quality. Their shifting alliances, who trusts whom, who wants whom, generate more suspense than any chase scene could.<\/p>\n Moreno-Garcia\u2019s writing is elegant without turning precious. She favors slow, sensory scenes, dry wit, and lines that turn a knife with quiet precision. One phrase, describing Perla\u2019s longing as a \u201cputrefied wound,\u201d has stayed with me for days. Readers who came to her through Mexican Gothic<\/em> will find the same command of mood, minus the supernatural. The point of view slides between all three principals, so we watch each character misjudge the others, which is where much of the book\u2019s grim comedy lives.<\/p>\n The atmosphere never lets up. You can feel the wet air and hear the drip of the chipichipi<\/em> rain. An honest reader should note the softer spots, because this is a very good book rather than a flawless one:<\/p>\n The slow burn is properly slow. Anyone expecting a fast, twisty thriller should reset their expectations toward a character study with a criminal pulse. None of these sink the book. They simply keep it from perfection.<\/p>\n What lifts The Intrigue by Silvia Moreno-Garcia above a standard period crime story is its literary DNA. In a closing note, Moreno-Garcia explains her aim to fuse the costumbrista<\/em> tradition, those Mexican novels obsessed with local manners and social rules<\/a>, with the moral rot of classic noir. The result earns its frequent comparisons to James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler, filtered through a distinctly Mexican, distinctly female lens. This is a crime story about money, marriage, and the narrow exits available to women who were never handed keys of their own.<\/p>\n Worth clearing up: this is a standalone, not part of a series, so you can start here with no homework. It does belong to a loose family of Moreno-Garcia noirs, alongside Untamed Shore<\/em> and Velvet Was the Night<\/em>, and it sits near her other historical and speculative work: Mexican Gothic<\/em><\/a>, Silver Nitrate<\/em>, Gods of Jade and Shadow<\/em>, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau<\/em>, The Seventh Veil of Salome<\/em><\/a>, and The Bewitching<\/em><\/a>. Fans of her range will feel right at home.<\/p>\n Velvet Was the Night<\/em> by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, for more of her period Mexican noirThe Cast: Nobody Here Is Playing Fair<\/h3>\n
\nPerla<\/strong> is the book\u2019s masterstroke. Prim, devout, and quietly furious, she carries the wounds of a woman who spent her best years nursing others while the world moved on. Underestimate her at your peril.
\nIn\u00e9s<\/strong> is the beating heart of it. Sharp-tongued, restless, and boxed in by a town that treats an out-of-wedlock birth as a permanent sentence, she wants out by any means available.<\/p>\nProse That Smells of Coffee and Damp Stone<\/h3>\n
What Works Beautifully<\/h3>\n
\nPerla, as a character, is worth the price of admission on her own.
\nThe social observation is precise and unforced, especially the cage that respectability builds around women of the period.
\nThe dark humor keeps a bleak premise from curdling into misery.<\/p>\nWhere the Seams Show<\/h3>\n
\nThe bond between Ulises and In\u00e9s, which the plot leans on heavily, could have used more room to grow. At times the attraction is asserted more than earned.
\nIn\u00e9s\u2019s practical role in the con gets less page time than her situation deserves, and a few threads resolve faster than the careful buildup promised.
\nUlises\u2019s limited cunning is a deliberate choice, yet readers hoping for a dazzling criminal mastermind may feel shortchanged.<\/p>\nCostumbrista Meets Noir<\/h3>\n
Where It Sits in Her Bookshelf<\/h3>\n
If You Loved This, Read Next<\/h3>\n
\nUntamed Shore<\/em> by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, a coming-of-age crime story on the Baja coast
\nThe Talented Mr. Ripley<\/em> by Patricia Highsmith, for charm as a criminal instrument
\nThe Postman Always Rings Twice<\/em> by James M. Cain, for lean, sweaty American noir
\nThe Paying Guests<\/em> by Sarah Waters, for a boardinghouse, forbidden desire, and crime
\nNightmare Alley<\/em> by William Lindsay Gresham, for a grifter\u2019s slow slide into the dark<\/p>\nThe Verdict<\/h3>\n