Who Killed Palomino Molero?

This book reminds me of "chronicle of a death foretold" - you may think this is too much of a overdraft but this is just pure sunshine. The translation is just as effective as the plot. The main investigators in the case Lituma and Lieutenant Silva represent a class who takes the insult in what ever form it may be but do not nudge back - gives back a subtle reply which gives the final twist. The author has been able to achieve a twist inside a twist which keeps us wondering at the end about the real topic of the book, which is suppose to be a detective story. The plot changes from an investigation story to traumatic social relations living history. Sometimes I was thinking - is this father Brown with a little bit of Tango? The death of Palomino Molero does not represent a simple case of torture and murder but a social dilemma of hatrate which has its grips so deeply rooted that sometimes people do not even question it . I promise you will enjoy this book.

The time is the 1950s, the place is Peru, and the victim is a young air force enlisted man named Palomino Molero, in Mario Vargas Llosa's spare, tightly written and excellently constructed whodunit. Palomino Molero, eighteen years old, a guitar player who enchanted everyone for miles around singing boleros, is found brutally tortured and murdered near a local air force base. Two civil guards, Officer Lituma and Lieutenant Silva, try to unravel the crime. Rumors abound all over the place; the victim was involved in smuggling or the like and the higher-ups are covering up the perpetrators. But when Silva and Lituma find out that what Palomino Molero was involved in was not smuggling but a love affair with the daughter of his base commander, the plot thickens in all kinds of ways. Vargas Llosa's book is not only a crime novel but a bitter indictment of the social/racial conflicts of modern Peru, where an airman cannot fall in love with the daughter of a colonel, especially if she is white and he is a cholo (half-breed). Vargas Llosa knows how to leaven his story with comic relief; Lieutenant Silva is hopelessly in love with and shamelessly pursuing the respectably married Dona Adriana, and her revenge on him for his presumption is a riot. The murder is solved, but the townspeople won't accept the truth, and insist that they were right all along; there were "higher-ups" involved. "Higher-ups" indeed. It would be a crime in itself to give the solution away and I'm not going to; suffice to say that Vargas Llosa has written a gem of a murder mystery with an ingenious plot twist. It's a very short novel and shows again that some of the best things come in small packages.

Palomino was killed in a very bad way, so you nust find who did it on this excellent history about Peru and 2 policemen than try to find who killed him. Besides everything, it is a lot of misteries, that will left you trying to guess who did it... (It seems too obvious... but not)Vargas Llosa is amazing

"Who Killed Palomino Molero?" is Mario Vargas Llosa's first stab at the detective thriller genre and it's a winner! Llosa uses the premise of a murder mystery to explore the theme of innocence and guilt in a society that's so ridden with corruption that the concept of justice is all but an illusion. There is no sense of relief in the denouement when the truth is told and the identity of the killer is revealed. Just like Alicia, the Colonel's daughter, the people of Talara suffer from permanent delusion, preferring to ignore the facts and attribute all of society's ills to "the big boys". Lituma is Lieutenant Silva's foil but also Llosa's voice. Through his ruminations and asides, Llosa articulates his horror of corruption and racism that permeate Peruvian life. Never making heavy weather of serious themes, Llosa infuses the novel with such sidesplitting humour you can't help but revel in Silva's obsessive lust over the voluptuous Dona Adriana. His sense of comedy and intuitive grasp of what's funny is displayed none more convincingly than in the final scene when the lady turns the tables on Silva. This is definitely one of the most captivating and enjoyable books I have read all year. Don't miss it !

I concider this book to be one of the most intresting and intriguing books of latin literature. Besides how can you go wrong with such a great writter? Delicioso!