The Devil Takes You Home

By Gabino Iglesias @Gabino_Iglesias

Published by Wildfire (an imprint of Headline Publishing Group) https://www.headline.co.uk/ @Wildfirebks

305 pages ISBN 9781472291059

Publication date 2 August 2022

I was sent a Hardback copy of the novel in exchange for a fair review. I would like to thank Caitlin at Headline for arranging this and of course the Author and Publisher for this kind gesture.

From the blurb

It was never just a job. Becoming a hitman was the only way Mario could cover his young daughter’s medical expenses. But before long his family is left in pieces, and he’s barely even put a dent in the stack of bills.

Then he’s presented with an offer: one last score that will either pull him out of poverty forever or put a bullet in the back of his skull. A man named Juanca needs help stealing $2 million dollars from a drug cartel.

Together, they begin a journey to an underworld where unspeakable horrors happen every day. He’s a man with nothing to lose, but the Devil is waiting for him.

Wrestling with demons of our world and beyond, this blistering thriller charts the unforgettable quest of a husband and father in search of his lost soul.

My thoughts

This novel has sat on my shelf for a while and my intention was I’ll read it next, only for something else to crop up. A few days ago, I decided I must read it and so I took it down and within a few pages I was mesmerised in the way that you see something awful but are transfixed, unable to look away. Once you are captured there’s 300 pages of it to get through and though I finished it yesterday it’s taken a little while to process it all. The Devil Takes You Home is an intense, brutal, and violent novel but also one that is prophetic and at times incredibly touching.

This is certainly not a book for the faint hearted, there’s plenty of violence which at times is visceral (in the true meaning of the word), there is also some vivid and disturbing imagery invoked, which some might find terrifying, and inherent racism is portrayed. As ever with such things context is everything. The plot is set against the drug cartels of Mexico where life almost has no value, they are exporting poison for vast wealth and anyone who gets in their way or crosses them will simply be eliminated. Showing disrespect leads to an early grave and if you strike against them it’s not a case of an eye for an eye, it’s both eyes and a headful of teeth. If a ‘solider’ is stabbed ten times it is repaid by stabbing one of theirs twenty times in an ever escalating orgy of brutality. As the reader discovers this attitude becomes significant.

The plot centres on Mario a man whose mother was American, and father was Puerto Rican, mixed race but essentially seen as not white. His life is far from perfect but whilst he has his wife Melisa and the daughter he dotes upon, Anita he can get by. Things start to unravel when Anita gets leukemia. Hospitalisation and treatment puts Mario and Anita’s relation under great strain as does its financial cost. When Mario’s attendance effects his job at the insurance company they show little compassion, and he is sacked. After Anita dies, in emotional distress he lashes out and hurts Melisa who leaves him. Friend Brian introduces Mario to meth (which he doesn’t take to) and a way of making easy money as a low-level hit man (which he takes to like a duck to water) thus beginning his slow descent to his own personal hell. This becomes a downward spiral for a normal man wracked with grief and remorse which the only way out and salvation comes in the form of the big job.

The storyline is told in first person (Mario) and we see how his experiences cause him suffering and mould his perspective and the desensitising effect of the progressive violence. All the while though it is clear he retains some decency at heart, but will it be enough to see him through?

Mario is the nucleus of the story but there is some great characterisation throughout, with Brian the junky and Juanca the tattooed Mexican ex-gang member his partners just for starters. Expect compromised religious figures (both conventional and not), casual racists, laughing killers, a bar woman with a big surprise and an unforgiving nature, along with some crocodiles (because Pablo Escobar’s hippopotamuses were too boring.) A colourful cast set against dusty small towns, tunnels under the border and secure compounds.

The story progresses rapidly and is very focused and linear being unencumbered by side issues or flashbacks. This works perfectly as it builds to the main set piece crescendo with aggression, shocking events and otherworldly imagery along the way. They may be ruthless murderers, but they are also very superstitious men, perhaps not believing in God but certainly believing in the Devil albeit one of their making. The precise meaning of the ‘protection’ given to Mario, Brian and Juanca will make your jaw drop, believe me.

Strip all of this away and at the heart we have elements of a buddy road trip and a noir tale of a heist complete with surprises and double crossing. Its masterful storytelling. The writing is stylish and at times stunning, this is not horror pulp but top-quality prose which can be as snappy as Don Vazquez’s crocodiles and yet at other times as an almost lyrical quality to it. Amongst this there are acute observations about the human condition and our worth as a species.

The Devil Takes You Home just might be the most incredible book I read this year; it left me speechless at the end. Not a novel to appeal to everyone, but it will be brilliant to those it does.

The Devil Takes You Home can be purchased via the publisher’s website here

The author

abino is a writer, journalist, professor, and literary critic living in Austin, TX. He is also the author of the critically-acclaimed and award-winning novels Zero Saints and Coyote Songs, which racked up nominations for the Bram Stoker Award, the Locus Award and the Wonderland Book Award (the latter of which Gabino won for Coyote Songs). As well as writing Gabino is a reviewer, author of non-fiction, and has been a juror for the Shirley Jackson Awards twice and the Millions Tournament of Books.

Source: Headline Publishing website