A review by skconaghan
Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

adventurous dark funny informative mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is horror, Moreno-Garcia style for sure; full of snappy dialogue, comically awkward horrific scenarios, unnecessarily tense relationships, uncertain attractions, dysfunctional families, GenZ/Millennials (I hardly know the difference anymore) kinds of shockingly honest conversations (which initially sits slightly wrong, as the novel is set in 1990s México City, but it’s not off-puttingly out of place as the story progresses), including whippy-fast and jaw-dropping stark language. The story presents some righteously petty men, is laced in morbid sarcasm, features an explosive chemical concoction sitting in an unsuspecting freezer, and the atmosphere is creeping with a curious grey fog of nostalgic suspense seeped in the darkest of historical truth. 
 
Classic Moreno-García. 
 
Imbedded in the setting and plot is a cylinder of interesting information about the inner workings of the film industry and especially the Mexican film scene from the very earliest days up to the multifaceted present (1993). ‘Relocated’ Neo-Nazis and the spread of their anti-Semitism are at the core of the moral dilemma here. 
 
Montserrat is a woman wrapped up in old film reels. The sounds and audio tracks of life fill her ears far beyond the quiet of her sound booth—that is, when she can keep a job in this man’s man’s world of film making. Tristan is an ageing actor with old habits the media can’t seem to leave behind, even if it’s been a decade since he’s popped an upper or sniffed a line.  Between these long-time friends, who endure their world of undeclared need which keeps them bound together and an unseen current of tension that maintains their perpetual fight, they have a serious horror flick addiction. Well, she does, and she drags him into it with her hands over his sensitive eyes. 
 
A strange murder sets Montserrat on a quest to find a killer who may not even be a living person. Tristan, on the other hand, is the one seeing dead people. And it all goes up in screen-smoke from there—conjuring magic and illusions and haunts of the past. 
 
In my mind, the whole thing played out like an old Black & White film, the edges burnt sepia, with popping 90s fluorescents flashing against my retinas at inappropriately timed moments. 
 
Delightful. 
 
I deem this novel: Neo-Punk Noir. 
 
Other than Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things this novel is the best of its unique genre.