Showing results by author "Adrian Nathan West" in All Categories

Guatemala, 1954. A CIA-supported military coup topples the government. Behind this violent act is a lie passed off as truth, which forever changed the development of Latin America: that those in power encouraged the spread of Soviet communism in the Americas. Mario Vargas Llosa has written a drama on a world stage, in which some persecutors end up as victims of the very plot they helped construct.

When he arrives in Cuba at the close of the eighteenth century, Victor Hugues, a merchant sailor from Marseille, brings with him not only the idealism of the French Revolution but also its ambition and bloodlust. Landing at the Havana doorstep of a trio of wealthy, eccentric Creole orphans, he sweeps them across the Caribbean Sea to Guadeloupe, whose enslaved Africans he frees only then to exploit them in his fight against the British for colonial sovereignty. What ensues in Alejo Carpentier’s magical realist masterpiece is an explosive clash between the New World and the Old World.

Ceferino Carrión is desperate for a new life - one of opportunity, fortune, and fame. But he knows he’ll never find this life in war-torn Spain. With his home country under the heel of the devastating Franco dictatorship and call-up papers on his doorstep, Cefe knows there’s only one thing he can do: run. A new life awaits in America, as does a new name - Jean Leon. From the concrete valleys of the Bronx to the sun-soaked hills of California, Jean crosses paths with legendary superstars, political powerhouses, and dangerous mobsters as he flees his past and pursues his dreams.

In a broken-down Middle American town, the disintegration of a struggling family—its ambitions and emotions worn thin—is laid bare through the cold eyes of its only son. While studying at the local community college to finish his degree, he works what his divorced parents deem to be menial jobs and tries to stay out of their way, keeping his pitiless observations about their lives to himself.

Luis Machi has had enemies for a long time: after all, he's built his success on dirty deals - not to mention his cooperation with the military junta's coup years ago, or his love life, a web of infidelities. What's new is the corpse in the boot of his car. A body with its face blown off, detained by a pair of furry pink handcuffs that Machi knows well. Someone is trying to set him up, but the number of suspects is incalculable. Machi is stuck dredging his guilty past for clues and trying to dispose of the mystery corpse. But time is just another enemy, and it's running out fast.