Robert Olen Butler begins a new series, the Christopher Marlowe Cobb thrillers, in the vein of the noir novels written in the 1920s, which follow the war correspondent who gives his name to the books. In The Hot Country, Cobb goes to Veracruz, Mexico, in 1914 to cover the United States’ invasion of Mexico in an attempt to keep the Germans from shipping arms to that country. He stumbles upon a nefarious plot which requires all his resources to verify. In doing so, he rides with Pancho Villa and falls in love with soldadera, a female soldier and sniper, all while chasing the story of a lifetime and juggling three identities.
Christopher Marlowe (Kit) has a complicated relationship with his actress mother, and themes of it run through the novel as they trade cables and letters. This background in theater gives him many of the skills with which he carries out his journey: fencing, boxing, and acting.
This book has a lot in common with My Name is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende, which follows a female war correspondent handling similar situations in Chile, and El Paso by Winston Groom, which is also about Pancho Villa and Mexico during the same time frame but set in Texas and northern Mexico. I found Emilia del Valle unlikeable on many levels, but enjoyed El Paso. For me, The Hot Country falls somewhere between the two. It’s better than Emilia del Valle but not as much fun to read as El Paso.
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The Hot Country (Mysterious Press, October 2, 2012) is available through:
Your local independent bookseller | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
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You can read my review of My Name is Emilia del Valle here.
You can read my review of El Paso here.
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