The Uncomfortable Dead: A Novel by Four Hands

The first set of the ‘Four Hands’ belong to Subcommante Marcos – the ski-mask clad spokesperson for the revolutionary Zapatista movement – who writes the odd-numbered chapters, while prominent novelist Paco Ignacio Taibo II’s second set take charge of the even-numbered chapters. Their stories are not isolated but interwoven.

You may recognise Taibo’s protagonist, Héctor Belascoarán Shayne, from a previous series. Here, the one-eyed Coca-Cola-fuelled private investigator is joined by Marcos’ main character, the Zapatista investigator Elías Contreras. The case that connects them is the rather vague investigation of, as Chapter 9 is entitled, ‘The Bad and The Evil’: the corruptors of Mexican and global politics – particularly an elusive figure named Morales, who may be responsible for the ‘disappeared’ our detectives are concerned with. Although this forms a tenuous narrative, the novel is enriched by the numerous storylines and characters. There is Julio, a gay Filipino trying to “figure out what the hell I’m doing in this book”; an Osama bin-Laden who is in fact a part-time porn star / taco-vendor, employed by the CIA; even Subcommante Marcos – ‘El Sup’ – appears, written in by himself in a completely natural third person. Alongside accounting this myriad of Mexican lives, both authors take licence to mercilessly unmask and denounce everything from encroaching globalization to bigoted homophobia. Despite sharing storylines, the two writers are never competing; each has their own distinctive style. Taibo’s homage to noir detective novels is reminiscent of Raymond Chandler; yet the erratic narration, mirroring the chaos of Mexico City, results in – if not ‘magical-realism’ – ‘hallucinogenic-realism’, resonating with the novelist’s Hispanic heritage. Marcos’ prose is just as poetic in places; however, he typically writes in persona as his Zapatista characters, adopting their local language. The peasant dialects are roughly adapted into the corresponding English slang, though the otherwise wonderful translation seems to reduce these characters from strong-willed revolutionaries to anglicised angsty gangster types. Ricocheting from genuinely humorous to desperately shocking, this murder mystery is not so much about murder or mystery. The ‘whodunit’ is supplanted by political rants, yet still stops short of becoming a mere vehicle for views. The Uncomfortable Dead is far from a linear thriller, but all the better for it.

8/10 Roseanna Eastoe