Silver Bullets

For Detective Edgar "Lefty" Mendieta, tormented by past heartbreak and dismayed by all-pervasive corruption, the murder of lawyer Bruno Canizales represents just another day at the office in Culiacan, Mexico's capital of narco-crime.

There is no shortage of suspects in a city where it's hard to tell the gangsters from the politicians. Canizales was the son of a former government minister and the lover of a drug lord's daughter, and he nurtured a penchant for cross-dressing and edgy sex. But why did the assassin use a silver bullet? And why, six days later, did he apparently strike again?

Mendieta's hunt for the killer takes him from mansions to low-life bars, from gumshoe reporters to glamourous transsexuals. Unearthing the truth can be as dangerous as any drug.

“One of the biggest names in Mexican literature . . . A true novelist . . . No one has captured the exciting and passionate nature of the Mexican vernacular like him”

- Arturo Perez-Reverte

If you are fed up with formulaic noir novels and looking for something fresher, Elmer Mendoza's dazzling Silver Bullets could be the answer - Sunday Times

Presents Mexico in a darkly surrealist light: corrupt politicos, a plague of narco-crime and only battered detective Edgar "Lefty" Mendieta on the side of the angels - Independent

Casts a wide net over modern Mexican life and an array of well-drawn characters, some powerful, some weak, some depraved . . . Mendoza's creation is nothing like standard pulp fiction - Times Literary Supplement

Elmer Mendoza was born in Culiacan, Mexico in 1949. He is a professor and author, widely regarded as the founder of 'narco-lit', which explores drug trafficking and corruption in Latin America. He won the Jose Fuentes Mares National Literary Prize for Janis Joplin's Lover, and the Tusquets Prize for Silver Bullets.

For Detective Edgar "Lefty" Mendieta, tormented by past heartbreak and dismayed by all-pervasive corruption, the murder of lawyer Bruno Canizales represents just another day at the office in Culiacan, Mexico's capital of narco-crime.There is no shortage of suspects in a city where it's hard to tell the gangsters from the politicians. Canizales was the son of a former government minister and the lover of a drug lord's daughter, and he nurtured a penchant for cross-dressing and edgy sex. But why did the assassin use a silver bullet? And why, six days later, did he apparently strike again? Mendieta's hunt for the killer takes him from mansions to low-life bars, from gumshoe reporters to glamourous transsexuals. Unearthing the truth can be as dangerous as any drug.

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