The Queen of the South

Just finished "The Queen of the South" by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Very, very intriguing novel. I think one of the reviews I read was a bit skewed when it complained about the point of view. Some of the novel is written from the point of view of a journalist who is writing the protagonist's life story -- most of it is third person narrative. I thought it was very easy to tell which was which and quite enjoyed the contrast. Not too long ago, Michael Dirda was talking about something similar in his weekly discussion on the Washington Post website. He mentioned that he didn't like biographers who seemed to get into the mind of the person they were writing about -- he didn't like them coming up with pages of dialogue nobody could have remembered. I think Pérez-Reverte was well aware of that when he wrote this book. The bits with the journalist interviewing people are completely imbued with the interviewee's personality and their, for the most part, very selfish viewpoint. It can't be easy to get a very clear idea about a subject from so many disparate tales without wanting to embellish on your own. Anywho, liked it but I would not recommend it to anyone squeamish who prefers extremely cozy little tales about shopping and cake-baking.

Up next on the agenda, Kathy Reichs' latest, "Devil Bones". I'm already about 100 pages in and loving it!