South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Loners cross paths amid political chaos
In her seventh novel, Silvia Moreno-Garcia delivers an absorbing political thriller that is the antithesis of a political thriller by concentrating on ordinary people swept up, often against their will, in the tide of activism.
Set in the 1970s during the real-life actions of the Mexican government’s plans to suppress political dissent, Moreno-Garcia succinctly shows in “Velvet Was the Night” how no one can escape the effects of politics that rule the day, no matter how much they try. Issues swirl around people influencing daily actions. Just ignoring current events doesn’t protect people.
At the heart of “Velvet Was the Night” are two people, lonely, disgruntled with their work, near friendless and each finding solace in entertainment that allows them to forget reality.
At 30 years old, Maite Jaramillo toils as a low-level secretary, with few friends, constantly at odds with her mother and younger sister, so far in debt she can’t afford to pay the repair bills for her overly expensive car. Her escape comes from reading romantic comic books, especially “Secret Romance,” so caught up in the stories she sometimes believes the characters are real. She ignores the political chaos erupting in Mexico City.
At 21, Elvis (he chose the name himself ) despises his work as the “enforcer” for a secret group funded by the government that tries to squash student protests. He despises that he is assigned to beat up people, as much as he hates the men he works with. He wants more from life. His escape is music, especially the American singers, music that Maite also enjoys. He can’t escape the political landscape that his job thrusts him into each day.
Maite and Elvis are connected when politically active art student Leonora disappears. Before she leaves town, Leonora asks Maite, her across the hall neighbor, to feed her cat. Maite doesn’t see this as a neighborly gesture but as a way to make some extra money and see what she might steal — nothing “extravagant,” nothing anyone would miss but something “interesting.”
Elvis is asked to find Leonora — not harm her, but find her and some politically sensitive photographs she apparently has. During his surveillance of Leonora’s apartment, Elvis begins to watch Maite, becoming fascinated with this ordinary woman. Individually the two become involved with domestic and international agents.
Pinpointing the chaos swirling in Mexico City, Moreno-Garcia moves “Velvet Was the Night” to a character study. Elvis longs for a “normal life,” instead he smokes too much because he feels “acutely empty.” He’s resigned that “some people are made to be lonely.” Yet, he tries to better himself in little ways, like learning a new word a day. Maite lives for the romance stories, “gnawed at each word like a starved woman.” She believes herself to be “mediocre.” She’s thrilled when her life comes to resemble a soap opera she so loves, yet she also wants a regular life.
“Velvet Was the Night” moves briskly, as readers are caught up in the trials of Maite and Elvis.
Short stories
As the title suggests, each story in this terrific collection of original short stories features something happening around midnight. Working the night shift, a stay at a bed and breakfast, a walk in the dark, and more, play deciding moments in the short stories in “Midnight Hour.”
Tina Kashian, best known for her light, cozy culinary Kebab Kitchen series, shows her darker side with “Cape May Murders,” in which two mothers encounter a sinister guest during their weekend at a bed and breakfast. A séance conjures domestic surprises in Gigi Pandian’s “The Diamond Vanishes.” Miami author Raquel V. Reyes mixes food and mayhem in “Mata Hambre.” Tracy Clark puts aside series character private detective Cassie Raines for a chilling tale about a thief who underestimates an older man on New Year’s Eve in “Lucky Thirteen.” The night shift at an insurance company’s call center becomes a matter of life and death as an English major listens to a drama unfold during a phone call in Christopher Chambers’ “In the Matter of Mabel and Bobby Jefferson.”
Other authors with solid stories include Frankie Y. Bailey, E.A. Aymar, Jennifer Chow and David Heska Wanbli Weiden, among others. These stories in “Midnight Hour” no doubt will inspire readers to seek out these authors’ other works.