{"id":227,"date":"2011-06-02T22:14:54","date_gmt":"2011-06-02T22:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zirkvandenberg.com\/?p=227"},"modified":"2017-11-23T22:15:54","modified_gmt":"2017-11-23T22:15:54","slug":"bumping-into-paco-ignacio-taibo-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zirkvandenberg.com\/index.php\/2011\/06\/02\/bumping-into-paco-ignacio-taibo-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Bumping into Paco Ignacio Taibo II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It wasn\u2019t a bit like the time I ran full-tilt into singer Jos\u00e9 Feliciano. There he was, a blind man trying to cross a foreign airport terminal and some kid comes crashing into him. I still feel bad about that. No, I\u2019ve never encountered Paco Ignacio Taibo II in the flesh. Nor, for that matter, had I met any other\u00a0Paco Ignacio Taibo \u2013\u00a0number one, three or whatever.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t even know PIT II, as he apparently refers to himself, existed until I sort of bumped into him by accident.<span id=\"more-249\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>What happened is this: I wandered into a library over lunchtime and saw they had some old books for sale \u2013 three books for two dollars. Almost straightaway, I spotted two books I wanted. But taking only two seemed like a waste, so what to do about a third?<\/p>\n<p>I looked through the names, but nothing rang a bell. I was running out of time. Never one to say no to a cheap crime novel, I ended up taking one marked with the library\u2019s gun-sticker, the icon they use\u00a0for crime stories \u2013\u00a0<em>No Happy Ending\u00a0<\/em>by\u00a0<a title=\"Paco Ignacio Taibo II on Amazon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/search?ie=UTF8&amp;keywords=Paco%20Ignacio%20Taibo%20II&amp;tag=saybooonl-20&amp;index=books&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325%22%3EPIT%20II%20on%20Amazon%3C\/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=saybooonl-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Paco Ignacio Taibo II<\/a>. I could always throw it away if it\u2019s useless, I thought.<\/p>\n<p>When I finally started reading the book, I was completely unsuspecting. I was just going to read a bit to see if it grabbed me.<\/p>\n<p>Many books, I must confess, don\u2019t pass the first sentence test for me. Others I stay with for a paragraph or a page or a chapter and if I still haven\u2019t felt that frisson of excitement \u2013 either because of style or content \u2013 that\u2019s it. Some I return to later, when a different mood or mindset might make me more susceptible to whatever the book has to offer. Others never see me again.<\/p>\n<p>This one started with direct speech: \u201cThere\u2019s a dead Roman in the bathroom.\u201d Turned out to be a Roman centurion in full regalia. This in Mexico in what is presumably the late 1970s.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, so now I\u2019m interested. On top of that, the writing has a certain nonchalance, an authentic style, which in itself is a rare enough thing.<\/p>\n<p>About 170 odd pages later (and yes, they are odd), I want to fling the book down. The hero just died\u2026<\/p>\n<p>This is upsetting in the extreme. Heroes don\u2019t die, not in entertaining crime novels. But then, this one is called\u2026\u00a0<em>No Happy Ending<\/em>. A bit of a clue, that.<\/p>\n<p>Apart from the fact that this is one awesome little book, the incomparable Paco Ignacio Taibo II then wrote a sequel. Yup, a sequel. Not a prequel, a sequel. As in set\u00a0<strong>after\u00a0<\/strong>the events of\u00a0<em>No Happy Ending<\/em>. Featuring the same detective who died in the first book\u2026<\/p>\n<p>How he does it? Sheer genius. I bow down, overawed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It wasn\u2019t a bit like the time I ran full-tilt into singer Jos\u00e9 Feliciano. There he was, a blind man&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[24,28],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zirkvandenberg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zirkvandenberg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zirkvandenberg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zirkvandenberg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zirkvandenberg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zirkvandenberg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":228,"href":"https:\/\/zirkvandenberg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions\/228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zirkvandenberg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zirkvandenberg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zirkvandenberg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}