Why a Booktrail?
2000s: The first novel by multiple-award-winning Chilean author Ramón Díaz Eterovic to be translated into English.
Dark Echoes of the Past
What you need to know before your trail
Private investigator Heredia spends his days reading detective novels; commiserating with his cat, Simenon; and peering out over the Mapocho River from his Santiago apartment. The city he loves may be changing, but Heredia can’t stop chasing the ghosts of the past. This time, they’ve come to him…
Virginia Reyes’s brother, an ex–political prisoner of dictator Augusto Pinochet, was killed in an apparent robbery. Yet nothing of value was taken. The police have declared the case closed, but Virginia suspects that things aren’t quite as they appear and turns to Heredia for help. Heredia couldn’t agree more—but he can’t shake the feeling that there’s something Virginia’s not telling him.
Heredia knows this is not a simple crime. His investigation proves it. Drawn back into a world where murderers nest, secrets are to kill and die for, and Pinochet’s legacy still casts a long, dark, and very threatening shadow, it’s all Heredia can do to crawl out of it alive.
Locations
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Travel BookTrail style to Santiago
This crime fiction novel paints quite a picture of the city of Santiago!
First we start at the Chimba region which is where the detective in the novel lives and works. He has views of the Mapucho River so is happy. Well, before the criminal cases get to him that is.
Plaza de Armas – “As I ambled through the Plaza de Armas, the painters who spend the day selling landscapes and caricatures to tourists began to pack up and say good buy to one another. The Plaza was a small oasis of green in the middle of the thousands of gray buildings in downtown Santiago.”
Mapocho River – “..it extended all the way to the Mapocho Riover in a confusion of filthy bars,strip joints, and alleys that served as hiding places for crooks keen on robbing the drunks who stumbled sown the sidewalks”
La Serena
The investigation leads the police here and away from the city to the coast. The area here is known for its long beaches, like El Faro with its landmark Faro Monumental lighthouse, and its colonial and neo-colonial architecture.
Booktrailer Review
It’s a gem of a novel and very visual – so much so it could be a TV program in the making. IF that character doesn’t’ grab you , then the setting surely will. 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…..
Read TheBookTrail’s bookreview Dark Echoes of the Past, Ramón Díaz Eterovic
BookTrail Boarding Pass: Dark Echoes of the Past
Destination: Santiago, Chile Author/guide: Ramón Díaz Eterovic Departure Time: 2000s
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