Pitol’s rangy whodunit offers a vivid portrait of DF from both 1942 and twenty years later. The narrative is constructed around the enquiries of a historian into a murder at a house split into apartments in a fashionable barrio, during the war. The historian was a child living in the house at the time. Now married with two children, he has been living in the UK, but plans to return to his roots. The premise allows the writer to introduce a medley of colourful characters from the Mexican capital’s arts and social scene, highlighting its cosmopolitan nature. The narrative is slightly stop-start, and something of a shaggy dog story, but it gives an insight into the feverish atmosphere of wartime Mexico City.
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