Fernando Vallejo the author of Our Lady of the Assassins sets this real life kind of novel in the place of his birth Medellin Colombia in the 1990's. The narrator--Fernando himself?--an aging homosexual in his 50's meets a young teenager--the lone hitman survivor of Pablo Escobar's drug cartel. What results might be viewed as a love story I suppose but it is a very noirish and violent one. Entertaining as well. What in particular stands out in all the sordid goings on is Vallejo's exasperated, sometimes hectoring voice--a dilapidated landscape of falling down barrios and its enraged citizenry always ready to do each other in over a pair of sneakers or something even more trifling all set amidst a kind of baroque catholic imagery. For turns of phrase it's hard to beat this one--this is how he describes his fellow citizens:

'Bad blood, bad race, bad character, bad reputation, there's no worse mix than that of the Spanish with the Indian and the black: they produce throwbacks, that's to say monkeys, simians, apes, capuchins with tails, so they can go back up into the trees with them. But no, here they walk the streets on two feet, crowding the centre. Uncouth Spaniards, wily Indians, sinister blacks: mix them together in the crucible of copulation and see what explosion that produces with the blessing of the pope. What comes out is crooked, self-seeking, slothful, covetous, mendacious, loathsome, treacherous and thieving, murderous and pyromaniac riffraff. This is the doing of Spain the Promiscuous, that's what they left us with then they made off with our gold. That and a clerical and penpushing spirit, bureaucratic, fanatical about incense and signed and sealed papers. Rebels, seekers after independence, traitors to the king: then the whole lot of them took it into their heads to become president, the bastards. That's why when the hitmen waste one of the candidates for the above throne on a airplane or on a public platform, my little heart goes ting-a-ling.'

FWIW Vallejo though unabashedly homosexual does not come across at least to my eyes and ears as liberal--and it probably cost him at least a half star. He at times takes his righteous rage a trifle too far for my blood. The milk of human kindness is not a part of his repertoire. Mixing the violence in a boiling hot atmosphere with a lot of catholic imagery though is certainly a trip--and though I'm not sure I came away liking Mr. Vallejo a lot I have to say I did enjoy the trip. Who he reminds me more of than anybody else is Michel Houellebecq. This is not for the fainthearted and be prepared at times to get a little pissed with the author. ( )