“I walked onto the balcony of my sixth-floor apartment in my neighborhood of La Condesa and fixated on the thin sheets of rain falling on a late summer afternoon.”

Midnight In Mexico
By Alfredo Corchado

Just as Alfredo Corchado and his girlfriend are getting ready to go out to dinner with some journalist colleagues the festive mood is disrupted when Alfredo answers a cell phone call. A longtime source tells him that there is a plan to kill an American journalist within twenty-four hours and that three names have come up, one being Alfredo’s. That was in July 2007 and the last time Corchado felt safe in Mexico.

Corchado is a Mexican-American journalist who was born in Durango but moved to the U.S. when his father came to work in the fields. His professional career has led him to reporting for major U.S. newspapers from Mexico at a time when there has been a surge in violence due to the drug wars that have been plaguing the country.

While his initial reaction is to continue reporting and investigating who ordered a hit on the reporters, Corachado also realizes that while he may have a lot of leeway and freedom in Mexico, times have changed. Just because he writes for an American paper doesn’t mean he is safe. His family and friends caution him and urge him to head back to the United States but I think he feels that if he were to do that, he would be giving up on Mexico just like so many other people have.

What I really liked about his account is that he mixes history with current events to give the reader a picture of how the country has changed over the last 50 or so years. It was not always like this. People could walk around safely at any time of the day and enjoy being owners of small businesses. People could travel and see the beauty of Mexico. Now, not a day goes by without reading about a violent episode.

While it’s not his role to offer solutions I do like that he shows the role that politics on both sides of the border have played and how the people of Mexico have suffered as a result of this. A truly fascinating look at a very dark time in Mexico’s history.

Source: Library copy

I hope you’ve all had a great weekend. I wanted to catch up on my blog reading and unfortunately here it is almost time to go to bed and I didn’t get a chance to do that. Don’t you  hate it when that happens?

Anyway, I had a good weekend and even managed to do a bit of spring cleaning. Part of that meant weeding out the shelves and taking some bags of books to Half Price Books. While I waited for my offer of course I found some books I had to have.

As you can see from the picture I got The Last Girl by Jane Casey. I love the Maeve Kerrigan series so I was excited to find this one. This is the third book in the series.

I also picked up Phantom Lady by Cornell Woolrich. I’d never heard of this author or the book but I thought the cover was very interesting. The link to the book is to a limited hard cover edition but I thought you might like to see that. Anyway, I think this might be a great choice for my Vintage Mystery reading challenge.

Then I saw a book with the bitten apple logo of Virago Modern Classics on the spine and I had to pick it up. The Land of Green Ginger by Winifred Holtby a story about a young woman who dreams of romance but after she marries a young man who has fought in WWI, she’ll have to adjust to reality.

I was very excited with my finds and when I checked out I got a little postcard about an upcoming sale. I don’t know if you can read that in the picture but it says “Everything $2 or Less.” I’m putting this on my calendar for sure!

Hope you have a great start of the weekend and I’m going back to my book for mystery book group. I am not done yet.