Transatlantic Mysteries: Crime, Culture, and Capital in the “Noir Novels” of Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán by William J. Nichols (review)

Noir detective fiction, established by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler in the 1920s and 1930s, has long been considered as an effective tool to portray and critique the corruption of modernity. Whereas the original North American model of the genre focused on the uncertainties of the Great Depression and prohibition years, the genre has been adapted to other cultural discourses as these nations enter the era of globalization and neoliberalism. In Transatlantic Mysteries, William Nichols explores the adaptation of this genre to Mexican and Spanish narrative through the works of Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán.

While most literary criticism on the novela negra consists of either a Latin American or Peninsular focus, Nichols effectively bridges this divide through a transatlantic study that maintains its integrity by identifying a common ideological approach linking the Mexican and Spanish writers, Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán. This shared ideology, as Nichols argues, is a critique of neoliberalism and a quest to redefine the leftist project within a society driven by market forces. The irony, as the author underscores, is the reliance on a mass-market genre whose popularity depends on commercialization.

Nichols’s study explores the sociohistorical backdrop for the development of Taibo’s and Vázquez Montalbán’s works (see chapter 1). The common process of a transition from a closed and repressed society (through PRI domination in Mexico and the Franco regime in Spain) to economic and political modernization has resulted in similar issues. As Nichols writes, “the social, political, and economic crises plaguing Mexico and Spain link directly to the disillusionment with a modernity that brings economic prosperity, although definitely not for all members of society” (33).

In chapter 2, Nichols describes the specific traits of the traditional North American hardboiled novel appropriated by Taibo and Vázquez Montalbán. Through an examination of the Belascoarán Shayne series and the Pepe Carvalho series, he justifies the incorporation of these elements while also demonstrating technical innovations, parodic inversions and self-reflexive aspects that distinguish these two authors works from the original model.

Chapter 3 consists of a critique of modern urban spaces and identities in Taibo’s and Vázquez Montalbán’s works. Nichols argues that the use of ethnically hybrid protagonists allows the authors to position their characters as simultaneously inside and outside of their respective social spaces. This “otherness” permits critiques of Mexico City, Barcelona, and Madrid that are not totalizing in their condemnation, as is the case of the North American hard-boiled novel, but rather complex in their pluralistic view of the virtues and vices of the modern city. Both Taibo and Vázquez Montalbán’s visions of urban space demonstrate the existence of “cities of contrast” in which a single city appears to have multiple faces as a consequence of disparities generated by the project of modernity.

As is the case with much contemporary Hispanic literary criticism, Nichols explores the often-discussed theme of recuperation of history through individual and collective memory as it relates to these two author’s works (see chapter 4). In chapter 5, Nichols concludes with an examination of the “anti-imperialist” sentiments prevalent in the novels and highlights the importance of unmasking circumstances and motives as contributors to crime.

Transatlantic Mysteries provides new insights into the use of the hard-boiled genre as a forum to comment on sociopolitical circumstances and specifically the forces of neoliberalism. Throughout the work, Nichols draws on relevant theories to fortify his arguments. This book is essential reading for anyone embarking on a study of the novela negra as it revisits foundational understandings of the genre while also offering a new argument about the political nature of these texts in a mass-market, consumer-driven...