Perhaps it’s been the stories in the paper about the post-election violence in Kenya, or the Bhutto assasination, or maybe from reading Llosa’s “The Feast of the Goat” last week, but I’ve rarely been more glad to call Australia home than recently. This is the second book I’ve read by Mario Vargas Llosa, for whom “The Nobel Prize for Literature, surely, cannot be long coming”. 
And it’s a beauty. Drawing from the real-life 30 year regime of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Rupublic from 1931-1961, Llosa gets inside the heads of the Dictator, his generals and conspirators around the time of his 1961 assassination. The relentless oppression and willingness to do anything to keep on the Generalissimo’s good side (fancy loaning your wife or daughter to him for a night?) are well detailed. The brutal tortures of suspects and their families and friends are probably a little overly described and seem gratuitous and repetitive after awhile, but the manoueuvering of the high level figures after Trujillo’s death was fascinating to watch. Utterly engrossing, particularly in the second half of the book, once you had finally worked out all the names and personalities (and there were a truckload). Note to Llosa, we need a glossary for those guys next time! I see Kim has bought me his latest book this week – I’ll greatly look forward to it also. 4.5 stars. It’s been a terrific 3 weeks reading lately.