A review by ruthypoo2
The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This story is not for the faint-hearted because there are some very brutal incidents involving injury, murder, death, abuse, drug use. Set primarily in Texas in a world of violent crime and desperation, the main character, Mario, is still reeling from the death of his young daughter and the breakdown of his marriage. The author nimbly weaves a number of serious social issues throughout his book, with one in particular being the way health care costs in the United States can bankrupt people and take them to a very low point in their life.

Looking for a way to recover financial stability and win back his estranged wife, Mario embarks on a life of crime he sees as short term. An opportunity becomes available for Mario to join two friends for a high-paying job that promises to be the payday they all need to start over and leave behind their criminal pasts. Unfortunately, this last job takes them into the underbelly of a world where the strong survive eliminating rivals and punishing traitors, and in this world, spirituality harnesses not just God, but the Devil too.

Really well-written story and a good translation. The assorted people and various landscapes of their environments felt visceral and real. In a lot of books and movies, criminals and the poor are portrayed in a one-dimensional way, but in this book, the characters possess great intelligence and depth, and the reader may likely be exposed to a harsh reality that many people experience but many more are insulated from by virtue of their skin color, neighborhood, lineage, and sometimes just luck.

I listened to the audiobook, and the narration by Jean-Marc Berne was excellent.
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