Only a couple of days before the state visit of the President of the United States, Filiberto Garcia - an impeccably groomed gun for hire, ex-Mexican revolutionary, and classic anti-hero - is recruited by the Mexican police to discover how much truth there might be to KGB and FBI reports of a Chinese-Mongolian plot to assassinate the Soviet and American presidents during the unveiling of a statue. Garcia kills various bad guys as he searches for clues in the opium dens, curio shops, and Cantonese restaurants of Mexico City's Chinatown - clues that appear to point not to Mongolia, but to Cuba. Yet as the bodies pile up, he begins to find traces of slimy political dealings: are local gears grinding away in these machinations of an international incident? Pulsating behind the smokescreen of this classic noir are fierce curses, a shockingly innocent affair, smoldering dialog, and unforgettable riffs about the meaning of life, the Mexican Revolution, women, and the best gun to use for close-range killing. | The Mongolian Conspiracy by Rafael Bernal, Paperback | Indigo Chapters