REVIEW:

Pro tip: Read the last few pages of Velvet Was the Night first. Go on… open the book up, flip to the back, and read the Afterword and Author’s Spotify Playlist. If you’re then compelled to turn back to page one and dive in, this will likely be a solid atmospheric historical fiction reading experience for you.

As author Silvia Moreno-Garcia explains in the Afterword, her latest novel “is noir, pulp fiction, but it’s based on a real horror story.” The story of focus is that of the Dirty War, when the Mexican government abducted, tortured, incarcerated, and murdered citizen activists in the 1970s through a group known as the Brigada Blanca. Rock music was also a casualty, as backlash against it was a symbolic way for the government to tighten its grip on the nation. Moreno-Garcia’s curated mood-setting playlist includes songs like Jailhouse Rock, Eleanor Rigby, and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.

Her fictional story is set in Mexico City and focuses on a romance comic-obsessed secretary named Maite who gets caught up in the disappearance of her beautiful neighbor and meets a reluctant thug named Elvis who’s also trying to find her. There’s violence, a little sex, loads of naughty words, and a lot of intrigue.

There’s also beautiful writing, which makes me eager to read more of the author’s books. I just didn’t connect at all to the characters or the content of this one. Had I read the end of the book before starting the beginning, I would have known this particular story wasn’t a great fit for me.

My thanks to Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Random House Publishing / Ballantine Books for providing an advance copy to review via NetGalley. Velvet Was the Night is now available.

PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic comes a “delicious, twisted treat for lovers of noir” about a daydreaming secretary, a lonesome enforcer, and the mystery of a missing woman they’re both desperate to find.

1970s, Mexico City. Maite is a secretary who lives for one thing: the latest issue of Secret Romance. While student protests and political unrest consume the city, Maite escapes into stories of passion and danger.

Her next-door neighbor, Leonora, a beautiful art student, seems to live a life of intrigue and romance that Maite envies. When Leonora disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite finds herself searching for the missing woman — and journeying deeper into Leonora’s secret life of student radicals and dissidents.

Meanwhile, someone else is also looking for Leonora at the behest of his boss, a shadowy figure who commands goon squads dedicated to squashing political activists. Elvis is an eccentric criminal who longs to escape his own life: He loathes violence and loves old movies and rock ’n’ roll. But as Elvis searches for the missing woman, he comes to observe Maite from a distance — and grows more and more obsessed with this woman who shares his love of music and the unspoken loneliness of his heart.

Now as Maite and Elvis come closer to discovering the truth behind Leonora’s disappearance, they can no longer escape the danger that threatens to consume their lives, with hitmen, government agents, and Russian spies all aiming to protect Leonora’s secrets — at gunpoint.

Velvet Was the Night is an edgy, simmering historical novel for lovers of smoky noirs and anti-heroes.