The Shadow of the Shadow (36 page)

There are no longer races run at the Condesa track, there's
not even a Condesa track anymore. Sanborns, the American Foto
Shop, the Bank of London and Mexico can still be found in the
same place, but Vito Alessio Robles, de la Huerta, and Obregon
are now no more than street names.

Nobody hypnotizes anyone in detective novels anymore.
Fortunately, dominoes continues to be the great national pastime,
and somehow, miraculously, it has yet to fall into the claws of the
mass media.

PACO IGNACio TAIBO II

PACO IGNACIO TAIBO II was born in Gijon, Spain, but
immigrated with his family to Mexico in 1958. He is a novelist,
journalist, historian and social activist. PIT II, as he is affectionately
called (his father and namesake is a respected historian), is known
for his improvisational novels, like The Shadow of the Shadow, which
spring from Mexico's revolutionary history; for his crime novels
which feature the quirky anarchistic private eye Hector Balascoran
Shayne; and for his in-depth histories of revolutionaries like Che
and Pancho Villa. PIT II recently collaborated-to international
fanfare-with the notorious Subcomandante Marcos ofthe Zapatista
Revolutionary Army to resurrect Shayne as hero in the novel The
Uncomfortable Dead (Akashic Books). Taibo is also the founder and
producer of Semana negra, an annual summer fiesta-disguised as a
celebration of crime writing-held in his birthplace of Gijon.

*Cinco Puntos Press