A review by thebooktrail88
Dark Echoes of the Past by Ramon Diaz Eterovic

4.0

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I love a good novel set in South America. There’s something about novels set here that really get me wanting more. It’s the setting, the heat, the passion and the way of life, the people…everything about this region of the world seems to add that little added air of excitement to my reading.

Having read many Spanish language books, I was keen to read this one in English. I’ve bought this author’s other novels based on this one – more need to be translated now!

It’s a gem of a novel and very visual – so much so it could be a TV program in the making. Heredia is your classic PI working in the backstreets and back offices of Santiago. He cares deeply about what he does despite his rather lazy attitude to life or is it world weariness? He likes the bottle, but he likes books more it would seem as he’s forever reading inbetween cases. He has a cat called Simenon! Could I love this character any more?

IF that character doesn’t’ grab you , then the setting surely will. The blend of 1950s Noir scenes in offices and in street confrontations blend nicely with the modern day problems which form the background to the novel. The story is set in present day Chile with a legacy of problems beginning with a capital P. That’s P for Pinochet. The man in La Moneda Palace may have gone, but his legacy remains and there’s a lot of secrets, dark stains on society and trouble in his wake. The police seem to have more to deal with than just crimes any other city has to deal with, but Heredia is keen that his case is not going to be lost underneath the rubble of history.

This is meaty, gritty and chewy Chilean feast. It’s ingredients are delicious – history, war crimes, dictatorship and the behaviour of the military, modern society, Chile’s transformation to democracy and more.

It’s all very vividly drawn and brilliantly executed. This is an exciting series and I’m going to cheat and read the other ones in Spanish but I hope there’s some English translations soon.