Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
This book improved towards the end. I would have been happy to stick with the perspective of Maite for the whole book and make El Elvis a more minor character. Maite was almost a character I enjoyed. Her at times real and at times exaggerated worrying about problems she caused and problems that were out of her control was intensely relatable. On the other hand her obsession with evaluating her life as if it was one of the romance comics she reads made her seem like she was a caricature of a dumb inexperienced girl who cant grow up. Some twists were obvious, some should have been obvious, but overall I thought the plot was enjoyable and thrilling almost all the time. My final complaint is that I wish there was some more engagement with the political issues presented besides Hawks - bad, police - bad, political corruption - bad, communist students -good but ineffective. I feel a bit like Maite, I know a bit about the Dirty War, but not really about the specifics. Then again, not every book has to be a deep social commentary.
It’s 1971 in Mexico City and the clandestine government sanctioned and CIA trained Hawks are infiltrating student groups and violently cracking down on protests. In this tense atmosphere two people are about to find their paths converging on a mystery. Maite, a legal secretary in her late 20s, agrees to pet sit for her neighbor to earn some extra cash. Only her neighbor never returns. What begins as a quest to get paid (and find someone to take the cat) turns into a full on investigation that involves her with communist art groups, rich antiques salesmen, secret police, and more trouble than she could ever have predicted. Meanwhile, Elvis, a member of the Hawks, is tasked with tracking down a missing woman and the film she disappeared with. Through Maite and Elvis’ overlapping investigations Moreno-Garcia
With her great talent for character and storytelling, Moreno-Garcia’s Velvet was the Night is a lush historical noir that brings 1970s Mexico City to vivid life. Featuring a slow-burn plot full of suspense, readers will be enthralled until the last page.
With her great talent for character and storytelling, Moreno-Garcia’s Velvet was the Night is a lush historical noir that brings 1970s Mexico City to vivid life. Featuring a slow-burn plot full of suspense, readers will be enthralled until the last page.
I felt like a was slugging along until the last 100 pages. A happy ending, sort of. =)
adventurous
funny
informative
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
The main character in Velvet Was the Night is a young woman named Maite. She lives in Mexico City, and the book is set in the early seventies. (I used to go to Jalisco starting in 1975 till about 1984. Just so you know.) Echeverria was president, and it was a time of political activism and unrest . (If only that was all that was going on now.) Many student activists would just be disappeared.
In 1968, a bloody mess had happened that nobody wanted to see repeated. Tlateloco, where military agents shot into a crowd of student dissenters. Which was why the man nicknamed El Mago hited young thugs to infiltrate student activist groups, who looked like they could blend into student life.
Maite falls in with a group of student artists/activists when her neighbor Leonora asks her to watch over her cat for a few days while she's out of town. Maite reluctantly agrees, and ends up being responsible for the cat for a long time, and even having to buy it food, when Leonora disappears.
I like Maite's character. She's around 30 years old and she thinks she's an old maid already, pobrecita. Her mother and her sister are probably the reason for this, as they constantly criticize her.
Maite works as a secretary for a law agency, making low pay, but her boss is rarely in. She makes up stories for her co-workers about romantic weekends and getaways.
She doesn't have any man in her life at this time, and her goal in life is to meet a man who will ask her to marry him, pobrecita. But she's not just the average young woman who thinks marriage is favorable. She has a book collection, literary books, and she has a record collection of what some people would say are classic songs. Some are Elvis Presley, some are Frank Sinatra....she also likes romance comics, like Lágrimas y Risas, and Secret Romance.
There's this dumbfuck named Cristóbalito who works on another floor of her building, who just used her and then dumped her. Infuriating character:
"He did not understand a single thing she told him. It lasted almost a whole year, their relationship. He dumped her near Christmastime for a different secretary on a different floor because Maite had begun to talk marriage, and quite frankly Cristóbalito found her a boring fuck."
In some ways I identify with Maite, when I was the same age as she is in this book. I have always had fights with my weight, and when my weight was higher than it is now, I used to think: if I could just take a knife and slice off that part that sticks out when you stand sideways in the mirror:
"That night, at home, she pinched the flabby skin of her belly and thought about cutting it with a pair of scissors."
"She hated the wrinkled necks of old women: they looked like turkeys. She pictured herself ten, twenty years older. The thought depressed her."
Lol. Yes Maite, it will happen to you too. And, the old ladies with the wrinkled necks that look like turkeys, hate them too. Did you ever hear that saying "como te vez, me vi; Como me vez, te veras"?
Elvis is a young man working for a secret government group that was formed when there was too much criticism of military going after student activists. So, the government thought, if they could hire young-looking men who could pass for students, and have them infiltrate student activist groups, then they could find information and make arrests.
But Elvis is different than his fellow crooks. He has ideals and he has dreams. He fell into this deal when he was kicked out of school because of being dyslexic, before being diagnosed.
Elvis is told to look for Leonora, and in looking for Leonora he notices Maite, who is also looking for Leonora. He's intrigued by Maite.
One day when Maite is feeding Leonora's cat, a man named Emilio comes to Leonora's apartment door. He tells Maite he was Leonora's boyfriend and he's looking for a camera he lent her. Maite lets him in and he looks for the camera but can't find it. He gives Maite his card, which is for an antique business that he owns.
Maite looks around Leonora's apartment, because she has a habit of stealing little items from people that she does works for, like watching their pets or walking them. She takes a box that she later looks through and thinks it's trash. unbeknownst to Maite, inside the trash is a roll of film that everybody's looking for, including Russian spys, and El Mago's group, who will torture you to get what they want.
Maite visits Emilio at his house, and notices that all of the art in his house is from pieces of a human body, like an eye, or an arm.
"Maite recalled what Rubén had said—Emilio slept with anything that moved—and she wondered if this was another one of his conquests. Maybe Emilio had a picture of her manicured pinkie in his house, or the eye, blown up, magnified, until it didn’t look like an eye."
Elvis begins to think about Maite as his girlfriend, after watching and following her for several days. She is rather plain, but something about her eyes and the look on her face, reminded him of Bluebeard's wife:
"He wanted to ask her how many records she owned and whether she listened to “Blue Velvet” late at night and swayed to the music, all alone, while the city slept."
Maite meets Rubén, a young man who works in a print shop and is in the artist/activist student group. Rubén joins Maite in the search for Leonora. Rubén likes Leonora, but like many young men, he uses Maite for sex, pretending he likes her.
"He was still naked, standing there, hair tousled and eyes fogged by sleep. She glanced down at the floor, feeling embarrassed. She’d fucked him, but she hadn’t really looked at him."
Sex is so awful.
Maite and Rubén take a trip out of town, on a tip from one of the student activists that LeoNora is there. I like the way the author has Maite use songs when she's with a man she likes, to convey her feelings. This is when she still believes that Rubén really likes her:
"As they sat there, waiting for their order, she tossed a coin in the jukebox sitting in a dusty corner and “At Last” began playing."
Maite's character is such an innocent:
"She blushed again and figured by now he thought she was a complete fool. But it wasn’t like she did this regularly. She was angry at herself for not having the composure of the women in the stories she read, for not being the sophisticated lady. Instead, she was a stupid, blubbering spinster."
🥺
" “Second, you’re pleasant and I don’t mind spending time with you,” he said, reaching for the ashtray and placing it in the middle of the table. “I’ve been so stressed I thought I’d have a damn heart attack, but I feel relaxed around you.” "
😡 asshole
Elvis's boss, El Mago, aka Leonora's uncle:
" “I think this is what I like most about you, Elvis, how you are still, at times, capable of being such a child. A big, giant baby. I wonder how you do it, that you can look at the world and manage to think there is a speck of fairness to it when all that the eye can see is garbage from here until forever." "
" “That’s nice of you, but I’ll be leaving the city as soon as I can—” “I thought you liked me,” she said quickly. “I do. But it’s not like we have anything in common. You know how it is.” She shook her head. “No, I don’t.” “Come on, Maite, you didn’t really think…and Leonora and I…well…” "
Just another true-to-life mofo male character. This is Rubén, who liked Leonora, who left him for Emilio. When Leonora comes out of hiding, she gives Rubén another chance, so he immediately dumps Maite.
But, as a consolation to the reader, Maite and Elvis get together in the end. Two innocents.
More of a 4.5 star for me. I think this is one of my favorites by Moreno-Garcia!
I love learning more about history that I’m woefully undereducated about and though I detested Maite as a character I still really enjoyed everything about the book. The ending especially was just what I wanted.
I love learning more about history that I’m woefully undereducated about and though I detested Maite as a character I still really enjoyed everything about the book. The ending especially was just what I wanted.
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Trigger warnings:
If you want a crime mystery that is slow and well-embedded within a setting that isn't the United States or Britain, there is a good chance that you will love this book. The writing is gorgeous and easy to follow. The characters are dimensional and intriguing.
I personally just could not jive with the main character though. I am just not a fan of characters who obsess over how others perceive them and centre their entire being on finding romance. I also just struggle with slower pacing mysteries - I read them for the whodunnit aspect and lose interest when there is too much focus on the surrounding plotlines.
Overall, this is absolutely a solid book. But Moreno-Garcia's slower, atmospheric style of writing just doesn't translate into crime/mysteries in a way that I enjoy.
Spoiler
blood and violence depiction, gun violence, knife violence and stabbing, physical injuries, missing person, tortureIf you want a crime mystery that is slow and well-embedded within a setting that isn't the United States or Britain, there is a good chance that you will love this book. The writing is gorgeous and easy to follow. The characters are dimensional and intriguing.
I personally just could not jive with the main character though. I am just not a fan of characters who obsess over how others perceive them and centre their entire being on finding romance. I also just struggle with slower pacing mysteries - I read them for the whodunnit aspect and lose interest when there is too much focus on the surrounding plotlines.
Overall, this is absolutely a solid book. But Moreno-Garcia's slower, atmospheric style of writing just doesn't translate into crime/mysteries in a way that I enjoy.
Note: Review copy (audiobook) received from Libro.FM. This does not impact opinions within this review.
blog • trigger warning database • more links
Happy reading! ❤
A imperfect, yet vivid, contemporary fiction. Yet it's one of Moreno-Garcia's best books! I highly reccommend it.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced