Book Review: Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

 

 

Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia 

Hardcover, 289 pages

Published August  2021 by Del Rey

New York Times Bestselling author…wait a second we should reflect on that for a moment. The first time this author was on my radar was seeing her read and be on panels at the HP Lovecraft film fest in Portland. I gotta say it is pretty rad to see another voice from our genre community have a big hit like Mexican Gothic but SMG earned it, with several books launched from the trenches and most importantly a great book like Mexican Gothic. I am happy for her.

I am sure many readers were expecting another fantasy book or even a sequel to Mexican gothic. Those of us who have been reading this author for a while did expect a different direction. This one came out of nowhere she wrote a period crime novel just before Mexican gothic. I don’t know about you, but this reader is loyal to authors over genre. I will follow most authors to most books if I like their work.

This is a pulp crime noir story set in a volatile time and place and perhaps most surprising is that it is one I have already read about in a new release novel already this year. They are very different books but since I read (and interviewed for my podcast) Seb Doubinsky’s Fragments of a Revolution I was already thinking about this strange time in Mexican history.

I know we generally think of Height Asbury or Woodstock when we think of the rebellious last year of the 60s but student protests in Mexico City were intense. Doubinsky’s novel is a surrealist look at the trauma of the events years later. VWTN is similarly themed but only a year after the events and is a gritty more hardboiled tale. I liked both takes and strange enough they unintentionally complimented each other.

VWTN is a crime noir, and even though SMG weaves important historical events, and nasty real elements it is a fun story. The author serves up plenty of fun with important moments of history and with that balance and I found myself wondering how each reader will interface with the push-pull of that.

It is the story of Maite a young woman who is pulled into a mystery when the neighbor she is cat-sitting for disappears. There are a group of secret government agents (The Hawks) who are looking for Leonora too, and they seem to be after a camera or film that may or may not have pictures of the government tough guys roughing up students.

One of those tough guys is named Elvis, he reminded me a bit of a Joe R. Lansdale or Robert McCammon character. He is just slightly a weirdo and maybe there is more to him than the surface level. That is what makes this book work. The characters are very vivid and their motivations are well detailed. It doesn’t take long into the page count to feel you know the characters.

That is not to say that the setting is not a strength, maybe not to the same level as SMG’s last book but that was a gothic. It shows that she knows what to focus on for the genre that she is writing. I will say I would have enjoyed a little more street views of 1970 Mexico City. That city was such a living character in SMG’s debut novel Signal to Noise and I thought it would have been good to get a little more that.

Maybe the only other nitpick is that I got lost in the action a few times. There were little to no transitions and I got confused, having to read a few sections over. That may have been on me, but it happened a couple of times. I think that is the reason I didn't connect to this book as strongly as I expected.

That said I didn’t miss the fantastical elements at all but then again I am a sucker for a good crime novel. The Dirty War and the violence against students made for a compelling backdrop, the characters carried more weight by the end. Velvet was the Night may not be a slam dunk for all fans of Mexican Gothic but I can recognize it is a good novel.