Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    No Happy Ending
    Unavailable
    No Happy Ending
    Unavailable
    No Happy Ending
    Ebook159 pages1 hour

    No Happy Ending

    By Paco Ignacio Taibo II

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The third English language case for Mexico City independent detective Héctor Belascoarán Shayne, No Happy Ending, is Paco Ignacio Taibo II at his subversive, darkly comic best. First, Héctor discovers the body of a dead actor, dressed like a Roman in full breastplate and regalia, propped up on the toilet in his office. Shortly thereafter, he receives a threatening letter and a snapshot of another murdered corpse. As Héctor investigates the killings he discovers that both share a connection to a dead stuntman named Zorak who apparently perished while training a government-backed paramilitary group.
    Once again, the one-eyed anarchist detective finds himself up against the very institutions which persecute the downtrodden and oppress the masses. In typical Taibo fashion, Héctor appears destined to lose— the ending to this remarkable absurdist tale shows his bullet-ridden body lying face down in the gutter during a rainstorm.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPoisoned Pen Press
    Release dateJul 20, 2012
    ISBN9781615953493
    Unavailable
    No Happy Ending
    Author

    Paco Ignacio Taibo II

    Paco Ignacio Taibo II, or PIT, was born in Gijón, Spain in 1949, before fleeing Franco’s dictatorship with his family in 1958. He has resided in Mexico City ever since, where he’s built a career as a writer, journalist, historian, and perhaps most crucially, a founder of the neopolicial genre in Latin America. His books have been published in twenty-nine countries and translated into nearly as many languages. In addition to being a prolific writer, he is an active member of the international crime writing community and organizes Semana Negra or “Noir Week” in his native Gijón. He has won the Latin American Dashiell Hammett Prize three times, as well as the Mexican Premio Planeta, and several other awards for international crime fiction.

    Read more from Paco Ignacio Taibo Ii

    Related to No Happy Ending

    Related ebooks

    Hard-boiled Mystery For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      79 The Terrible Grinning Men

      Sep 10, 2020

      79 The Terrible Grinning Men
      8 min read

    • Article

      A Criminal Tale Of Two Cities

      Jul 26, 2023

      Stranded by bad weather the other day in Portland, Oregon, I took a walk. The town still prides itself on its 1880s converted sawmills-and-saloons ambience. But, surveying central Portland from a nearby hilltop, I was struck more by the similarity to

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Small Flame in the Dark: On Jenny Erpenbeck’s ‘Go, Went, Gone’

      Feb 7, 2018

      “People have always moved. The story of humanity is essentially a story of movement.” —Patrick Kingsley, The New Odyssey Some of the romance of my life in Rome was the view out my apartment’s windows: two medieval churches, cobblest

      5 min read

    • Article

      Licensed To Chill

      Feb 24, 2022

      Licensed To Chill
      9 min read

    • Article

      Licensed To Chill

      Feb 24, 2022

      Licensed To Chill
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Compelled

      May 10, 2024

      Content Disclosure: Existential Themes “We want to rename the building ‘The Ethereon Flux Parallel Worlds Center,’” the woman said. Lathar stepped toward her, having just taken the elevator up to the thirty-third floor. Slowly, her face came into foc

      19 min read

    • Article

      Sex In City The

      Apr 22, 2021

      Sex In City The
      24 min read

    • Article

      Table Talk

      Sep 1, 2017

      Table Talk
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Last Gamble Of Tokyo Joe

      Apr 22, 2023

      The Last Gamble Of Tokyo Joe
      41 min read

    • Article

      The Smoke of the Land Went Up

      Mar 4, 2024

      The Smoke of the Land Went Up
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Penalty

      Nov 5, 2020

      The Penalty
      8 min read

    • Article

      Commentary: Los Angeles Feels Unsafe

      Aug 26, 2018

      I noticed a change in my neighborhood about a year and a half ago. It began to feel more dangerous, even during the day. Scavengers regularly dig through my trash and dump what they can't use. The remains bake in the sun. Sometimes the scavengers pas

      3 min read

    • Article

      ‘I Am Pablo Escobar’s Secret Son’

      Aug 28, 2020

      HE BELIEVES that one day a film will be made about his life. Phillip Witcomb can see it now: part espionage caper, part globetrotting crime thriller, part family saga with several twists, mostly tragedy but with a peaceful end for its hero, packed wi

      8 min read

    • Article

      Complaints Department

      May 23, 2020

      Complaints Department
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Madcap Kidnappers

      Mar 20, 2023

      The Madcap Kidnappers
      21 min read

    • Article

      'Brooklyn Crime Novel' Explores Relationships Among The Borough's Cultures And Races

      Oct 6, 2023

      Jonathan Lethem's narrative is a nonlinear mosaic; an amalgamation of vignettes coming together to create a beautiful, gritty, impeccably researched portrait of Brooklyn, its history, and its people.

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Scumbags Of Schorem

      Jul 23, 2019

      The Scumbags Of Schorem
      4 min read

    • Article

      Hey, Necromancer!

      Sep 18, 2018

      Hey, Necromancer!
      8 min read

    • Article

      Brighton Secret Comedy Club

      May 25, 2021

      Brighton Secret Comedy Club
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Locksmith

      Jun 1, 2022

      THE LOCKSMITH cannot speak well. He never liked school. When he was a child, the others called him Tombstone. They threw things at him. Bottles and food waste and dirt clumps studded with gravel. Though he was much larger than they were, he remained

      9 min read

    Reviews for No Happy Ending

    3.5/5

    16 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      No Happy Ending by Paco Ignacio Taibo II

      Héctor Belascoarán Shayne tells us that he decided to become a detective because he didn’t like the color his wife picked for the new carpet. He had been an engineer. He got his license by mail. He had never read a British mystery novel. He didn’t know a fingerprint from a finger sandwich. He could only shoot something if it didn’t move very much.

      Héctor is a usually a taciturn, enigmatic man who is an unrepentant teetotaler with a penchant for Pepsis. He shares an office with three characters, a plumber, an upholsterer and a sewer engineer

      One day a murdered man dressed as a roman soldier is found at his office and then he gets a mysterious message to ignore was he saw and along with the message there was a plane ticket to New York City. All Héctor really knew at this point was that he loved his home, Mexico City with a passion and if he waited the killer would show his face.

      In this case the detective is correct and it appears that there is more than one killer and that they are from the police. Since this is Mexico, the question is whether they were from the secret police, the auxiliary police, the judicial police, the special, the bank, the preventative, the traffic, the federal?

      Héctor uncovers links from these men to a very unsavory incident in Mexico City’s recent past. What it has to do with him appears to be serendipity but he is caught in a web he cannot escape. His life is on the line and he is very like a gunslinger of the old West shooting first and asking questions later.

      This is a very intriguing character and the people in his life are also worth knowing. The prose is somewhat Hemingwayesque and I look forward to reading more of this writer.