What begins as a series of defamatory letters by an anonymous professor regarding the coca trade transforms into an epic in which great loves are met and lost, families are broken, deaths of best friends become common, and the culture of an entire region is changed forever. Denisio Vivo never meant to become an icon, but his prose brought him legendary status which he has no choice but to live up to when the coca lord begins to threaten the people around him. But in the process of becoming a hero he must first lose everything that he ever considered important, because he cannot see things as they are and is thus in denial about the consequences of his actions (and the responses of those he is criticizing). I found this novel tobe very moving, but the melancholy tone makes it a slightly less enjoyable read, though I guess thus is typical due to the inherent violence and death that are brought about by the drug trade. ( )

This is a continuation of the surreal story of The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, which I very much enjoyed when I read it a few years ago. It also addresses the very serious issue of the cocaine trade in South America, with its attendant corruption and extreme violence.

In places it is very funny; in others it is sickening in its graphic violence (but that is no more than a reflection of the real-life situation. There are flashes of eroticism of rare intensity. The whole thing is a terrifically good idea. Unfortunately though, it seems a bit of a mess. It could do with a good editor and a lot of pruning. ( )

This is a continuation of the surreal story of The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, which I very much enjoyed when I read it a few years ago. It also addresses the very serious issue of the cocaine trade in South America, with its attendant corruption and extreme violence.

In places it is very funny; in others it is sickening in its graphic violence (but that is no more than a reflection of the real-life situation. There are flashes of eroticism of rare intensity. The whole thing is a terrifically good idea. Unfortunately though, it seems a bit of a mess. It could do with a good editor and a lot of pruning. ( )

This story set in South America, written by British author de Berniece’s, is both a love story and a story of violence and horror. It is fantastical, full of magical realism and humor which helps with the horror of violence but in the end it is mostly a very dark story of drug cartel violence and one man’s efforts to make a change in some way through his letters to the newspaper and in the end he loses everything but wins the battle. ( )

This Brit, a self-acknowledged "Márquez parasite," tries too hard to write a crazy, mythic, magical, Latin American book starting with his first line: "Ever since his young wife had given birth to a cat as an unexpected consequence of his experiments in sexual alchemy..."

But you can get carried away as you follow the professor unloosing his pen and some unintended voodoo on a minor drug lord carrying out his terrible, gory, minutely-described tortures.

Caricatures abound. But action drives the book across a pseudo-Columbia looking for the final confrontation. It happens but I won't talk about it.

Easy read. ( )