Alicia Gaspar de Alba
Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders (2005)
Author: Alicia Gaspar de Alba
Genre: Mystery (Amateur Detective)
Plot Summary:
Ivon Villa is a Women's Studies professor in Los Angeles. Her and her lesbian partner's desire to adopt a Mexican baby brings her back to her home town of El Paso. On the plane into El Paso, Ivon reads in a magazine about the hundreds of murdered women whose mutilated bodies have been found in the desert around the maquiladoras (factories) in Juarez, just across the border from her hometown. Her cousin, Ximena, is a social worker who helps women working in these maquiladoras. Ximena sets Ivon up with a pregnant factory worker who is unable to care for her child once it is born. Against the backdrop of heated family tensions, Ivon and her loved ones find themselves in the middle of the tangled and dramatic mystery of the Juarez murders. Due to ineptitudes of the authorities in the U.S. & Mexico, Ivon finds that to get to the bottom of the murders, she must act by herself. SPOILER: Not only does the woman carrying the baby Ivon wants to adopt turn up mutilated in the desert, but Ivon's little sister, Irene gets kidnapped from a fair in Juarez. Ivon's search for Irene turns up a trail of government corruption, sexual predators, prostitution rings, live snuff films, and the consequences of a general laissez-faire border culture brought about by NAFTA and globalization.
Geographical Setting: El Paso, Texas / Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
Time Period: Contemporary (1998)
Appeal Characteristics:
This novel is based on real events, so the reader learns a lot about border culture and the history of the Juarez murders as the plot unfolds. Fans of strong female protagonists will love Ivon, the butch and headstrong main character. The reader also spends a lot of time immersed in Ivon's Latino family and feels the tension about her lifestyle choices (being a lesbian, dating a white woman) and decision to adopt. The writing style is witty, the characters are likeable and well defined, and the pace is very fast. The book is a definite page turner as most chapters end with new information or cliff-hangers. As a reader it's difficult not to become as obsessed as Ivon is with solving the murders. The mystery isn't necessarily solved in the end, but Gaspar de Alba suggests in the last chapter, "This wasn't a case of 'whodunit,' but rather of who was allowing these crimes to happen? Whose interests were being served? Who was covering it up? Who was profiting from the deaths of all these women?" (333). The mystery is left dangling, mostly due to the fact that it is based on real events and the murders are still a fact of life in Juarez.
Read-alikes: Readers who enjoyed Alicia Gaspar de Alba's fictionalization of a true story and immersion in Mexican culture would most likely enjoy her historical fiction novel about a 17th century Mexican radical feminist, Sor Juana's Second Dream: A Novel. Fans of Gaspar de Alba's vivid characterization, tough lesbian protagonist, and exposure of political ineptitude would enjoy fellow Lambda award winner Elizabeth Pincus' The Two-Bit Tango, a hard-boiled lesbian mystery novel set in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. Another novel featuring a lesbian sleuth is Elizabeth Sims' Holy Hell: A Lillian Byrd Crime Story, also a good readalike because the subject matter is similar (mysterious disappearances of women and discovery of mutilated corpses) and because the protagonist is drawn to the killings in a personal way and ends up being pursued herself due to her interest in the crimes. Readers who liked the wit and fast-paced writing style of Desert Blood would enjoy Abigail Padgett's The Last Blue Plate Special, the second novel in the Blue McCarron mysteries in which a lesbian social psychologist and her partner investigate a string of potential serial murders against successful women in California. This novel is also a good readalike because it features interracial romance as well as struggles with homophobia. Readers who enjoyed learning about border culture through Gaspar de Alba's social-critique-style would also enjoy James C. Mitchell's Choke Point, a private investigator mystery involving border culture, narco-trafficking, maquiladoras, and government corruption. Readers looking for more information on Juarez would greatly enjoy Charles Bowden’s nonfiction work, Juarez: The Laboratory of Our Future, a photo-essay on the corruption, drug trafficking, and disappearances on the US-Mexico border. For readers who would like more information about the true crime of the Juarez Murders, The Daughters of Juarez: A True Story of Serial Murders South of the Border by Teresa Rodriguez, offers a nonfictional account and indepth look at personal cases. For reader's who enjoy identifying with the main character and who enjoy how Ivon identified with the victims of these crimes should check out Desert Cut-A Lena Jones Mystery by Betty Webb. In Desert Cut, the strong female protagonist, Lena, finds the body of a young girl in the desert whom she can see herself in, and thus becomes obsessed with solving the murder. In The Final Country by James Crumley, the main character is a private investigator who also becomes emotionally involved with solving a case of rape and murder. This novel also does a great job of relating the geography of Texas much like Desert Blood. For readers who enjoy strong female protagonists and the unsettling absence of resolution should try Turtle Moon by Alice Hoffman. Turtle Moon's main character Lucy, is looking for a new start to her life when she finds her neighbor murdered, the neighbor's baby missing, and her own son missing. The strange atmosphere and environment of Florida in this book is similar to Texas and Mexico in Desert Blood. Readers who connected to the strong historical fictional aspect of Desert Blood would enjoy 1949: A Novel of Irish Free State by Morgan Llywelyn. This book is similar to Desert Blood and Gaspar's other historical fictional novels, Sor Juana's Second Dream and Gaspar's most recent novel, Calligraphy of the Witch by interweaving fictional history and story telling. In 1949 Ursula must leave Ireland as she is unwed and pregnant. She returns to Ireland in a new era to see the changes and desires equal freedom for both men and women. In Calligraphy of the Witch, Gaspar's main character is an indentured servant who is captured by pirates, raped, impregnanted, and sold into slavery where the barren slavery owner's wife tries to steal her child. This novel is reminiscent of Desert Blood in several ways including fighting for equality, tension in family relationships, and the historical detail offered.
Red Flags: Graphic descriptions of mutilation, rape, and murder. Adult language. Sexual situations (hetero & homo). Racial tension, homophobia.
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