Officer Rivera
discovers a body in the vast Sonoran Desert somewhere in the Southern United
States. Meanwhile across the Mexican Border 25 desperate souls are trying to
escape the hell and poverty of their homeland by the promise and attraction of
a new start in the US. I was reading this book late at night in a darkened room
with the wind and rain beating against the windows and this greatly added to
the chill factor and the atmosphere. The story is narrated in two time lines with
a matter of days separating both accounts. As Border Patrol Officer Rivera
tries to decipher a message carved into the body of an unaccounted alien
further south Mayra Visari and a band of desperados attempt to make their way
north under the leadership of a young guide known as Il Bufon..."The
Joker" The story is mainly about the journey and encounter with an alien
force invisible to the eye but deadly when confronted. In this respect I was
reminded of scenes from Predator when our muscled up hero Arnold Schwarzenegger,
whilst attempting to rescue some politicians in Guatemala, is pursued by a
brutal creature with superhuman strength that has the ability to disappear into
its surroundings.
Unfortunately when we reach the midway point the story falls
into a continuous game of attack and escape as the aliens attempt to
destroy/consume the desperate band of illegal immigrants seeing them only as
part of the food chain. This type of action soon becomes tedious and a story
that started with great promise soon begins to lose my interest. There were of
course some enjoyable moments and in particular a snappy narration and quirky observations..."Altar, Sonora, was a town
of evil, a place where dreams came to die and were buried in unmarked graves in
the desert"..... "It was only a matter of time before we started
dying"....."Our shadows stretched away from us as though seeking
release from the fate to which we had been consigned"......."We were
the walking dead, an entire procession of weakness and despair".....
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