Changes

The book is billed on the front cover as ''narco-lit'' and Mendoza as the ''Godfather'' and founder of the genre. I had not, until now, heard of a book described as ''narco-lit'' and so really did not know what to make of it. After a bit of reading I found that the term is used to describe literature which explores drug trafficking and corruption in Latin America (Mendoza himself is present on twitter and YouTube - though mostly in Spanish - if you find yourself curious and wanting to learn more about ''narco-lit''). Immediately authors such as Don Winslow sprang to mind and I felt I was back on familiar ground and was looking forward to reading ''Name of the Dog''. Where it started to fall down for me however, was in the style of the writing. I am a girl who likes the boring things like paragraph breaks and quotation marks. I like being able to tell which character is speaking and when there has been a time shift or plot change. I found it really hard to do that with this book as none of the above were present much, if at all. I am not sure whether this is a quirk of Mendoza's writing or if the problem lies in the book's translation into English. Whatever the reason, I have to say it all started to become a bit surreal and hard to follow. This may say more about me as a reader than Mendoza's abilities as a writer, but nonetheless, it did hamper my enjoyment of the book. The story itself was strong and I actually warmed to the disorganised and lugubrious Lefty - a character I could easily see on the small screen. The character of Ugarte was also brilliant and offered a chance for Mendoza to play with the assumptions and pre-conceived ideas of the reader. Ultimately though, I'm not sure I'm quite ready to fully embrace a series where the parameters of style and content are not clearly defined. To coin a phrase I think I'm just too 'old school'.