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A review by paul_cornelius
The House of Wolfe: A Border Noir by James Carlos Blake
5.0
Another engaging crime thriller from James Carlos Blake. This one is set in Mexico City and once again brings the Wolfe clan in Texas to Mexico, where they work with the Mexican branch of the family. This time it's to rescue a young member of the family, Jessie, who has been caught up in a kidnapping.
The usual harried pace that Blake seems to incorporate in all his novels reaches a zenith, here. Also present is his spinning out of moments in time. Through adapting the technique of multiple perspectives, Blake is working the tradition of literary modernism. But rarely do you see this sort of perspectivism employed over such a spread of characters as with Blake. Like the work preceding this, The Rules of Wolfe, events take place over a long weekend. Yet somehow it all seems much more epic and grand than that. Even the squalid setting of Mexico City's slums and poisonous landfill take on gargantuan meaning that a lesser writer would allow to lapse into mere atmosphere.
Working in genre fiction that is much more than genre, Blake doesn't seem to get his due with these works. The fact is he seems to be one of the greater writers of contemporary American fiction. His stories are full of "binary bleeding," where hard borders dissolve into blurry psychology and motivations.
Finally, as I read through this series of Wolfe family novels, including In the Rogue Blood, I'm struck with how in an earlier era, with the likes of James Michener and James Clavell (lot of Jameses, here), the series would fit into one large multi-generational saga, such as Michener's Hawaii or Centennial or Clavell's Tai-Pan, Noble House, and Gai-Jin.
The usual harried pace that Blake seems to incorporate in all his novels reaches a zenith, here. Also present is his spinning out of moments in time. Through adapting the technique of multiple perspectives, Blake is working the tradition of literary modernism. But rarely do you see this sort of perspectivism employed over such a spread of characters as with Blake. Like the work preceding this, The Rules of Wolfe, events take place over a long weekend. Yet somehow it all seems much more epic and grand than that. Even the squalid setting of Mexico City's slums and poisonous landfill take on gargantuan meaning that a lesser writer would allow to lapse into mere atmosphere.
Working in genre fiction that is much more than genre, Blake doesn't seem to get his due with these works. The fact is he seems to be one of the greater writers of contemporary American fiction. His stories are full of "binary bleeding," where hard borders dissolve into blurry psychology and motivations.
Finally, as I read through this series of Wolfe family novels, including In the Rogue Blood, I'm struck with how in an earlier era, with the likes of James Michener and James Clavell (lot of Jameses, here), the series would fit into one large multi-generational saga, such as Michener's Hawaii or Centennial or Clavell's Tai-Pan, Noble House, and Gai-Jin.