By Jonathan Marcantoni
Publisher: Aignos Publishing
This story is fiction; however, the author indicates he was inspired to write this book after reading the study “Trafficking in Puerto Rico: An Invisible Challenge” by César A. Rey Hernández, Ph.D and Luisa Hernández Angueira, Ph.D. According to the author, many of the crimes and the raids on slum communities for this story were depicted from this study as well as the use of articles from the newspaper “El Nuevo Dia” and Wapa TV. The author’s roots are in Utuado and Fajardo, Puerto Rico, which gives him great insight into the culture and settings for his book.
The author devotes full chapters to characters and this type of arrangement allows the reader to get inside the head of each person in the book. This rotating structure readily grabs the reader and keeps the audience wondering as to how the characters will intertwine as the story moves forward.
In the beginning, the book tends to lean towards telling versus showing (a lot of Puerto Rico’s political turmoil); however, once you get to the part where two of the characters are locked up in a closet, the story begins to take off. The author does a fantastic job of adding suspense and intrigue from here on in and then you can’t stop reading because you have to find out what happens next.
Although the overall theme of the book is based on corruption at various levels of society, there is another underlying theme which is sprinkled throughout the story – it is that of light skin versus dark skin. This is a great weave by the author and shows the negative impacts of this shallow mindset.
The book is written in a third-person point of view and this works well throughout the book. The style is informal and is an easy read. The reader is taken into the “seedy” side of life and remains in this mode for the majority of the story. The downside of this, however, is that the reader can sometimes become complacent with the same seamy approach.
In the story, Ilan (the main protagonist) is mixed up in a world of corruption and struggles with an internal tug of war of right and wrong and life in general. The author does a good job of adding tension in the story for the reader because you aren’t sure which path Ilan will eventually take. It has some interesting turns and unexpected twists.
I would say that the author’s purpose in writing the book was two-fold; to provide details into the world of Puerto Rico’s drug smuggling, human trafficking, and illegal immigrant issues as well as writing a good suspense novel. The book is definitely written to entertain, so if you’re into political corruption stories, pick up a copy – it delivers!
Source: Book was provided by author for review. It was reviewed by Corina Martinez Chaudhry.
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