"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.