Velvet was the Night is a gritty noir from Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Now, this is an entirely different offering from the author of Mexican Gothic and I have to say I am immensely impressed by her range. As noir, it hasn’t got the same pace as a twisty thriller, but that isn’t its intention either. Instead, what we are given is a smoky, atmospheric mystery that captures the sweaty heat of a city in turmoil. There are eyes and ears everywhere which, in turn, makes for lonely hearts. Personally, while Velvet was the Night is not as original as Mexican Gothic, I felt more invested in this story than MG. I like the time period and the historical accurateness are more in tune with my interests (from what I understand while it is fiction, it is set in real political events in modern Mexican history).

Velvet was the Night isn’t a literary game changer, but it’s definitely brooding, entertaining and has a perfect balance between plot and character development. I wouldn’t mind spending some more time with Maite and Elvis and can easily envision (and hope) a sequel of some sort. In the meantime, I’ve purchased The Beautiful Ones which I look forward to reading when Autumn sets in.

(3.5 stars)

Historical noir is not something I normally pick up. I tend to be very hesitant in reading. historical fiction in general. But I love the author and her writing so I tried this and I have no regrets.

The story was so intriguing. I did not swallow it but the last 3rd made it difficult to put down.

Maite was the first character and honestly, I didn't like her very much but I loved her storyline. She is stuck in her life, in her job, in her love life. She doesn't get treated very nice by her family but she constantly lies and steels so I didn't like her. She was an unlikable MC but not unlikeable enough for me to dislike the story. I prefered her narrative to Elvis I think.

Elvis was one for the bad boys but with some more refined taste. I liked him as a person more because he wasn't meant to be good but had this good trait. While Maite is supposed to be good but has the bad trait lol.

Well written as expected. The slow burn for these two narratives to meet was great and even the open ending didn't feel so open and I loved that.

It was a surprisingly enjoyable historical fiction, a genre I normally don't like. Maybe the noir part was what made it?

Noir is very much about living in the grey areas. Characters who are not people you’d want to be in a room with doing terrible things and yet we find ourselves compelled to watch or read their exploits. We may never do what these people do but just perhaps we envy their moral flexibility as much as we shake our heads in disapproval and don’t avert our eyes when things go wrong. In Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s deliciously entertaining Velvet Was the Night we find ourselves watching two misfit characters slowly around a central political mystery in 1970’s Mexico City.

Maite is a young woman very conscious she is turning thirty and yet unmarried and without anything in her life to look forward to beyond her next Romance Comic Novel and finding new music to listen to. Most of her life is boring stuck as a legal secretary but a secret she doesn’t share is that in her apartment block she offers to take care of pets and likes to steal a little item from each one. Elvis ( not that one!) is a Hawk for the Mexican Government; an undercover operative/heavy/thug hired for his ability to fight and now being used to spy on left wing demonstrations and when required throw punches steal cameras and find out who is trying to betray the government. He also wants to improve his vocabulary, adores Presley and loves finding new music records to listen to.

Maite is asked to mind the cat of a glamourous young woman named Leonora for a weekend and then several more days pass without her return. People start hanging around her apartment and Leonora asks Maite to take things for a secretive meeting that she never turns up for. Maite is hoping to get paid to finally fix her car so starts investigating and finds herself in the world of left-wing artists and students looking for revolution. Elvis and several of the Hawks after a demonstration that went very wrong are sent by their mysterious boss to find a young woman who may have key evidence…a woman named Leonora.

This is a really impressively constructed novel. The central mystery of Leonora and what she has found and who she has joined sides with is the black hole that captures Elvis and Maite and brings them ever faster towards meeting. Moreno-Garcia captures a Mexico on edge with a government of secret police, spies and even KGB/CIA operatives lurking in the background. The music of the US and UK such as the Beatles or Presley is still subversive in a world where singing cafes with played, music are getting banned and women are expected to quickly get married and have children. The cultures are clashing, and the story feels with art student revolutionaries and government heavies spying on each other all ready to finally erupt into violence. A taster of which is the depiction of the Corpus Christie Massacre or El Halconazo where we see chaos and bloodshed as the government attacks demonstrators – this world feels unsafe from the start and means we don’t feel that any character is safe in this uncaring world.

In a typical political thriller then Maite would be the glamourous heroine chasing ideals and Elvis the true believer villain fighting for the State and the delight of the novel is neither character fits this pigeonhole. They’re more swept up in events rather than trying to control them. Maite is less interested in politics than paying her bills and indeed purposely avoids the newspaper headlines. For her the interesting element to this mystery is the chance to step inside an adventure that could fit the plot of her beloved Comic Romances. On the one hand we feel sympathetic with someone who everyone tells her to conform and settle down when all she wants is adventure and passion, yet we also note her enjoyment of theft and making up stories about her life that suggest she is getting involved for all the wrong reasons.

In contrast Elvis is someone who obeys orders; doesn’t find beating up students and revolutionaries a problem and yet we get to see he saw this job as a way to escape a life of crime and poverty on the streets. His hero worship of his the known as El Mago shows an insecure young man who is a bit of dreamer wanting to just listen to music and live the life of a gentleman. As he investigates, he starts to see that not everything he was told is true and while his scenes are often violent and bloody, we get to really hope he comes out of this in one piece. Moreno-Garcia crafts two really stand-out characters who mirror each other in unexpected ways that we hope when they finally meet it is not going to be a devastating encounter. It’s a beautiful bit of character and plotting that we see their two storythreads collide and don’t know what will happen until the last moment.

Regular readers of the blog know I’m a huge fan of Silvia Moreno-Garcia and their work in any genre is always at the top of their game. In this case we get a brilliantly plotted tale with two fascinating characters we can’t ignore and want to see how they get out of this story. On top of this readers will get to see a piece of fairly recent history that not many in the UK will have heard of before. A perfect read for thriller fans.

Loved the pacing and the characters. Silvia just keeps getting better and better. Can’t wait to read her next book.

My thanks to Quercus Books/Jo Fletcher Books for a review copy via NetGalley of ‘Velvet Was the Night’ by Silvia Moreno-Garcia in exchange for an honest review. As I began reading on its publication day, I complemented my reading with its unabridged audiobook edition, narrated by Gisela Chípe.

I am always excited to discover a new novel by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Her writing is excellent and quickly draws me into her story, characters, and setting. She has also proved to be versatile in terms of genre.

‘Velvet Was the Night’ has no science fiction or fantasy elements. It is noir, historical pulp fiction inspired by real events in Mexico during the 1970s. In that respect, the horror within its pages isn’t supernatural but terrifying due to its reality.

The novel is set in Mexico City against the backdrop of student protests and the political unrest of the early 1970s. Silvia Moreno-Garcia uses her storytelling skills to highlight the events of the Dirty War (Guerra Sucia) through the lives of her characters.

June 1971, thirty-year-old Maite feels trapped in her all too humdrum life as a secretary in a lawyers’ office. She seeks escape in the passionate stories in the latest issue of the comic, Secret Romance. She is intrigued by (and envious of) her neighbour, Leonora, a beautiful art student whose life appears to be full of excitement.

When Leonora asks Maite to feed her cat for the weekend, she reluctantly agrees. However, Leonora doesn’t return as expected and Maite finds herself searching for the missing woman, entering Leonora’s secret life among the student radicals.
Yet this search is fraught with real dangers, not the kind that Maite has encountered in her comics.

The novel’s second narrative voice is Elvis, an eccentric criminal, who is also seeking Leonora at the behest of his boss, a shadowy figure commanding the Hawks, a paramilitary unit trained by Mexican authorities, with support of the CIA, to suppress dissidents in Mexico. Elvis also wants to escape his current life and the culture of violence associated with it. He is surveilling Maite from a distance hoping that she will lead him to Leonora.

As to what happens, I don’t want to head into spoiler territory though aside from Maite and Elvis there are plenty interested in Leonora’s whereabouts including spies, hitmen, and government agents. Eep!

I appreciated Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Afterword in which she gives an account of the historical events that informed ‘Velvet Was the Night’, including how certain types of music were suppressed and banned and the responses to this repression. As music plays such a big role in the narrative, Silvia Moreno-Garcia provides her playlist for the novel following the main text.

As I have found in her other novels, Silvia Moreno-Garcia brings into play small touches such as fashion and popular culture that heightened my sense of immersion in her setting.

I enjoy noir of all kinds and this was an excellent example of historical noir. I also hadn’t been aware of the popularity of romantic comic books post WWII, so this was another fascinating aspect to the novel.

Overall, I found this a highly engaging novel that I enjoyed very much. It’s quite subtle and character-led. Here, both Maite and Elvis were richly realised protagonists that I came to care for very quickly.

Highly recommended.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia has a way of transporting you directly into the setting of her novels from the first few sentences, Velvet was the Night was no different. Moreno-Garcia’s writing is so lyrically transfixing that you can’t help but be immediately sold.

"Some people are made to be lonely"

When I love a book, I find that it’s so much harder to write about it because the words I sometimes have is just an inhuman garble of words which culminates in a PLEASE READ THIS BOOK. I can go for hours about books that I dislike, but for books like these it takes just a little bit of extra effort to bring back coherency, rein in the emotion and articulate myself well.

I adored the characters of Maite and Elvis and felt their desperation and loneliness seep through the pages and touch a similar yearning within myself. Neither Maite and Elvis are where they thought they’d end up and they seem to just be going through the motions of a never-ending life, trying to find some sparks of serotonin wherever they can. They lose themselves in selected choices of escapism – which as bookworms we are innately in touch with this concept. Music is such a form of connection between the two stories, and I encourage you to take a listen to the Velvet Was the Night playlist that was put together for this purpose.

Looking at Maite it looked like I was staring into a mirror (with the exception of a compulsion to steal) – even down to one story that Maite told of a workplace experience:

“… but the fact that she had to waste half an hour of her lunchtime standing in line and paying for a pair of socks irritated her.”

I, too, have had to go and purchase some socks for a boss on my lunchbreak – as soon as I read this, the kinship was cemented and I was rooting for her from then on. Although, I do love cats and I would have moved Leonora’s cat in with me immediately and would have never let it go.

Elvis touched a deep part of sorrow and loneliness in my core and although he is, what you would call, an anti-hero – I kept wishing for him to get all the good in the world. In a world where we’re all just trying to do our best, you can see him trying.

Velvet was the Night is told by dual POV’s and they are entwined so well, as both Maite and Elvis are on the trail of Leonora (for similar but differing reasons). I never felt lost as to whose story we were hearing as they both had their own individual voices firmly created and the switching between them was just so natural.

“Often life doesn’t make sense, and if Elvis had a motto it was that: life’s a mess”

Moreno-Garcia has a knack for writing Noir’s (PLEASE READ UNTAMED SHORE IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY) and I am desperately hoping that there is another one in her future, because I will absolutely devour that one too.

I received an eARC of this book from the Publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review – upon release date I also purchased a copy of the audiobook to have that experience and the narrator was absolutely perfect for the story and I completely recommend the audiobook.

I came to Silvia Moreno-Garcia via Mexican Gothic, and then was initially puzzled by the huge genre shift in The Beautiful Ones (which I also enjoyed). Well shift and shift again, as clearly Moreno-Garcia is more than happy to slide between style and genre, here we have a noir gangster romance set in 1971 Mexico, at the time of student protests and government clampdowns. We have two protagonists, Elvis - a low level gangster starting to question the role he has found himself in, and Maite, a thirty year old office clerk, feeling unloved and losing herself in her romance comics and rock and roll. Music is the line that unites the pair, and while they don't directly interact for much of the book, its that spiritual bridge than underpins the novel.

Moreno-Garcia knows how to build place and time perfectly, partially because she is so comfortable in her characters heads. And these are deeply flawed characters, Maite has almost given up, feels left behind and unloved by her mother and everyone else. Elvis is ostracised from family and his crew (who bully him) are now the only family left. Near the start Maite is asked to look after Leonora's, a neighbour, cat, the neighbour is involved in the anti-fascist underground and she slowly (for selfish reasons) gets involved in Leonora's life. The noir drifts in subtly into her life, its already there with Elvis, but for her it become dizzying moments of attractive strangers, missing people and calls from the secret police.

Much like Mexican Gothic, Velvet Was The Night takes the genre and puts a Mexican flavour on it. Imagine a missing persons case when there really is an untouchable secret police on your back and there really are Russian spies whipping up the communist underworld. The romance comics angle is also an interesting technique to flesh out Maite's hopes and dreams and why perhaps she commits to a dangerous course of action. Elvis on the other hand gets betrayed one too many times. Moreno-Garcia is extremely prolific (i have another book in my NetGalley readlist), but the quality does not lag - I read this in one sitting and found it fascinating as a bit of history, and compelling as a narrative. And it has a pretty perfect ending - which you see coming from a mile off but is extremely satisfying.

It’s 1971, and in Mexico City, a quiet secretary becomes embroiled in a complicated plot linked to the political unrest currently transforming the town. All Maite wants is to escape into the latest issue of Secret Romance; with every passing page, she can feel the world's problems fade away as she is swept up in tales of passion and danger. When her beautiful next-door neighbour asks her for a favour, and then mysteriously disappears, Maite attempts to put together the pieces and finds herself drawn deeper into Leonora’s secret life and something far more insidious.

Velvet Was the Night is a riveting historical crime noir that swept me up in its lush descriptions and complex characters. The book was atmospheric and the characters were vivid. The story provided a perspective on the political unrest at the time and even the suppression of rock music that had been imposed by the government.

I have never read the noir style genre before, although I did enjoy the book and the authors writing style, it was very easy to get lost and playing catch up - re-reading to try and understand.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

3.5/5.

A perfectly entertaining book. For me personally more in the middle range of SGM's book.
However I discovered that historical noir isn't really my type of genre. I wasn't able to connect with Maite the same way I connected with SGM's other main female characters.

A good book but not as good as Untamed Shore or Mexican Gothic 🙂

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn't planning on requesting this, as my main interest in Silvia Moreno-Garcia's writing belongs to the fantasy elements she incorporates, but as I was offered it I thought I would check it out. This was a fresh take on the noir genre that despite being a departure from her usual still feels very 'her' and I will be recommending it for purchase within my library service for the way it tackled both the subject and the development of anti-heroes.
Some of the dialogue felt a little overused and I wasn't as invested in this as her SFF works but at the same time it's nice to see an author branch out and grow.

I haven’t come across another author who is as much of a changeling when it comes to style as Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Each of her books vary in genre but each of them are so good. Whenever I approach a new book by her, I simply expect the unexpected and I’m never disappointed. Her latest release, Velvet Was the Night, is a pulp fiction political gangster novel set in Mexico City, 1970. Here’s some historical context about what inspired it from the author herself.

‘One Thursday in 1971, a shock group funded and organized by the Mexican government attacked a group of students marching through a large avenue in Mexico City. The Hawks (Los Halcones) had been trained by Mexican authorities with support of the CIA in an effort to squelch communism in Mexico and suppress dissent. Hundreds of protesters were injured or killed during what became known as El Halconazo or the Corpus Christi Massacre. President Luis Echeverría and local authorities, including Mexico City’s regent, Alfonso Martínez Domínguez, denied the existence of the Hawks or shifted the blame. As a result of this attack, simmering guerrilla action in Mexico increased, as incensed students decided that one could not reason with the authorities. Meanwhile, the Hawks were disbanded. However, repressive action against activists and guerrilla fighters did not cease. Through a group known as the Brigada Blanca, the government abducted, tortured, incarcerated, and murdered Mexican citizens during the decade of the 1970s. This was known as the Dirty War (Guerra Sucia).’ – Author note.

The story is told in alternate chapters through the perspectives of Maite, a thirty-year-old legal secretary who is obsessed with romance graphic novels and American music, while moonlighting as a petty thief, and Elvis, a twenty-three-year-old reluctant thug who also loves American music and books, but who is a member of the Hawks gang. This isn’t a good girl meets bad boy romance novel, not by a long shot. When Maite agrees to take care of her neighbour’s cat for a couple of days, she is unwittingly drawn into a dangerous political situation when her neighbour disappears. All Maite is initially concerned with is getting her money for pet sitting; her car is stuck at the mechanic and she needs to pay the overdue bill. But her loose involvement with her missing neighbour puts a target on her and Elvis’s crew are sent in for surveillance, however, they are not the only group watching her. Her neighbour was in possession of some explosive evidence that more than one group want to get a hold of, and they all believe that Maite is now the keeper of it.

Through this novel, we get a glimpse of Mexico City in the 1970s, the political unrest, the fear of ‘commies’ and ‘reds’, the violence against students, the guerrilla warfare in wider Mexico, the tousle between gangs and the political corruption. And then we also see, through Maite’s life, the Mexico of the ordinary working woman, young, looking for a husband while also relishing her own independence, even if it does come with the price of a boring job and an expensive apartment. Maite really grew on me throughout the course of the novel, as did Elvis, both with their quirks and awkwardness, and I felt for them both, the situations they had each found themselves to be in. I really liked the ending of this novel, the hopeful promise of a new beginning for each of them. It was lovely. The novel does get quite violent as it progresses, think Pulp Fiction meets The Godfather with a bit of Taxi Driver thrown in. As the pace picks up towards the end and violence increases, there is some chaos in the action, but I never found it difficult to follow and I liked the twist towards the end when one person’s true identity was revealed – I hadn’t suspected a thing and it was a real gamechanger.

Velvet Was the Night is an engrossing novel that had me captivated from the beginning. I love this window into Mexico that I get to peer through each time I read a novel by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, particularly as she sets each of her novels in a different era. I recommend this one to those who like to read crime stories set within a political context, but with fully fleshed out characters that you get the chance to become invested in. This novel has all the all the feels of a gangster film. I loved it.


Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

I'm always excited when I get my hands on a novel by Moreno-Garcia because with each novel she writes in a new genre: gothic, horror, romance - just to name a few. They are all very distinct from each other, but all feature strong characters and storytelling.

This one is no different! However, I was a bit more apprehensive than excited going in to this one because to my knowledge, I have not read much like this in terms of genre (noir). But I wanted to give it a go because it sounded good, it was written by Moreno-Garcia, and I do like to venture out my reading comfort zone every now and then (if I never did this, I wouldn't have found a new appreciation for thrillers, for example).

And I really enjoyed this! I loved both Maite's and Elvis' perspectives, and how they circled around each other. Their relationship (or lack thereof) was very interesting. In many ways they resembled each other: the obvious ways such as their love for music and literature, but also in how they both felt beaten by the world, each of them wanting to find their place somewhere (and with someone).

What I also loved about this is how the plot all came together! How is it Maite and Elvis were both the main characters, but felt like side characters in their own stories? In one part of the novel, Maite remarks that 'she had been written out', that it was never her the focus, but someone else. And this whole novels was like that too. While Maite and Elvis were our perspective characters, the story revolved around other players largely. And I loved that it was told through their POV, and not Leonora's (who you could argue was more 'main character material'), it really ramped up the tension. By receiving clues from both perspectives - clues that Maite or Elvis weren't privvy to - gave me pieces to try and put the puzzle together. And how wonderfully it all came together! I did guess some of it - who Leonora's Uncle was - but it was no less of a good reveal.

However, I did find the pacing off. This is probably just me, and this is a struggle I have had with multiple Moreno-Garcia's novels, it was a little slow for me. And while I did like how all the threads came together at the end, I was a bit let down at how just nothing came of it. It was like oh well, that's over now - want to go for coffee? But this was not a bad novel and I do think the issues I have are down to me not being familiar/a lover of the genre, and thus this is just a reflection of my personal reading tastes and in no way do I think this is a bad book, just not for me!

But with that said, I did quite enjoy this. It was mysterious, suspenseful, atmospheric, and I enjoyed the characters. If you like complicated characters, anti-heroes, a suspenseful plot with political intrigue in a historical setting, I would highly recommend!

Thank you to Netgalley and Quercus/Jo Fletcher books for sending me this e-arc in exchange for an honest review

Thank you NetGalley and Jo Fletcher Books for my e-arc of this title, received in exchange for an honest review.

The fates of two strangers tangle as their respective lives grow increasingly complicated in 1970s Mexico City where protests and politcal unrest run rife.

3.5 ⭐️
While this book seemed to get off to a bit of a slow start as it set the scene and established its cast of characters, once it got moving I thoroughly enjoyed it. As usual Moreno-Garcia's writing style is compelling and ever-fresh, whatever the genre.
Our main characters are intriguing and just unpredictable enough to keep things interesting, which I enjoy. The story moved along nicely across its various POVs as the characters' trajectories gradually converged on one another, bringing its many plot points to a satisfying close. The central and latter part of the story kept a brisk pace as the tension reached its zenith in the final act.
The ending also managed to straddle the precarious line of satisfying yet ambiguous.

Overall, a quick and enjoyable read in a genre I might not usually reach for.

OMG! SMG, what have you done?

If there were ever a book that is made-to-order, this one would be it for me!

In her afterword—and yes, I do read those, SMG writes, "My novel is noir, pulp fiction, but it's based on a real horror story." And I absolutely get it. I absolutely understand the need to fictionalize a horrid chapter from history to bring it into the light, especially for underrepresented/misrepresented and often misused and abused cultures.

I'm mentioning this at the beginning of my review because if you are aiming to read something in the vein of Mexican Gothic, you'll be gravely disappointed. This book is not paranormal fantasy as you might expect. This is something else entirely and it is based on real events, and perhaps real people. This is a book that proves SMG's ability to write in whatever genre she chooses and still dazzles.

I cannot say I'm a fan of noir or pulp fiction as genres, but I'm a big fan of this book.

The narrative swings between the two main characters:
Maite: plain, gullible, ambivalent to the political tumult around her, living for the next issue of Secret Romance, a beautifully illustrated graphic novel.

"Love, frail as gossamer, stitched together from a thousand songs and a thousand comic books, made of the dialogue spoken in films and the posters designed by ad agencies: love was what she lived for."

Elvis: thug, dyslexic, part of a government-trained paramilitary group that targets "subversive elements" called the Hawks (Los Halcones), lost in the jungle of the more powerful ElMago, their leader.

"Thugs. That is what they wanted. Thugs who could beat and who could spy on young students, but not much more. What use is teaching a man to beat another one if you are not going to aim higher, I say? So I asked to lead a few units that had more refined personnel. But people like Anaya do not like that sort of thinking, they do not like you stepping a little higher. They abhor competition. They need to own the whole ring. You get it?"

When Maite's neighbour, Leonora, disappears, and suspicions grow around her whereabouts as well as the reason behind her disappearance, Elvis finds his path intertwined with Maite's in the most curious and somewhat violent ways. A lot of mysteries unravel as Elvis attempts to discern Maite's role in Leonora's disappearance or lack thereof.

The story takes place right after the Corpus Christi Massacre of 1971, in which more than 100 students were killed in demonstrations. It was a marking day during a period of persecution in Mexico better known as the Mexican Dirty War. SMG does an excellent job of putting together the basic markers of that era in a story full of intrigue and far less than perfect characters. The story is a riveting one about faulty humans in less than auspicious times. It captures the national as well as the personal with equal finesse. The main theme that brings both MCs together isn't some kind of an external force but rather something intrinsic within both of them: loneliness that is consoled by a shared love of books and music. Alternating between both MC's perspectives helped reinforce this theme. And it is beautifully written within the larger context of 1971 New Mexico.

And if you happen to be a fan of the movie Inception, you'll fall in love with the Inception-esque ending of this book.

I did not know what to expect when I started this book and I did not expect to love it this much as I went on reading. I truly believe in this story; I truly believe in the power of telling stories about the dirty chapters of history rather than sweeping it under the rugs.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, BRAVO!

MAny thanks to Quercus Books, Jo Fletcher Books and NetGalley for this gift.

Thanks to Quercus Books and NetGalley for the Advance Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a really big fan of Silvia Moreno-Garcia and I always feel very privileged to get to read advance copies of her books before release. I like how she doesn't pigeonhole herself into certain genres and readers can always be sure that they are going to get to read something a little different. Speaking purely selfishly I also like how prolific she is!

Going by the synopsis alone I'm not sure this is a book I would naturally pick up so I can't comment as to how representative it is of the noir genre. What always strikes me about Moreno-Garcia's writing is that she really knows her characters and there is always a really coherent sense of place and time and this holds true for this book too.

The book is set in Mexico City in the 1970s during the student movement of the late 60s and early 70s. Full disclosure, this is something I know absolutely nothing about, but the incorporation of real historical events was accomplished successfully.

The novel is told from two different points of view, that of Maite, a bored and unfulfilled secretary in her early 30s with a love for Mexican romance comics. Again, this is not something I am familiar with but having had a quick google they look like a lot of fun. Maite gets drawn into the mysterious disappearance of her neighbour and finds herself way out of her depth.

The second point of view is that of Elvis, a gangster in his early twenties keen to make his mark on the criminal underworld.

It is a testament to Moreno-Garcia's skill as an author that I didn't like either of the two point of view characters yet still cared enough about them to see their stories through to the end.

There was a definite slump in the middle for me where I started to feel my interest waning, Elvis' chapters in particular struggled to maintain my interest. Perhaps it's because I don't find gangster/gang member narratives particularly compelling and the main plot driver of the story, the missing neighbour, didn't really grab me either. I didn't really care whether she was found or not. I felt like the story could have benefited from a little romance too, for me it was just missing that frisson of romantic tension that would have made it a bit more enjoyable of a read.

Velvet Was the Night is a lush, absorbing crime noir set against the backdrop of political unrest in Mexico City, with morally grey characters and moments of quiet beauty. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, Silvia Moreno-Garcia is definitely an auto buy / auto read author for me and this book just reinforced this once more.

I really loved the whole crime noir aspect of this novel and it reminded me of Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s shadowy atmospheric rendition of Barcelona in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. Moreno-Garcia weaves together this complex tale of political upheaval, protests and suppression and charges it with distinct layers of suspense and intrigue which I genuinely couldn’t put down. Apart from this novel and the above mentioned series, I don’t think I’ve read noir novels before but I definitely want to continue, especially if they’re all up to this calibre.

I really enjoyed the use of dual perspective here and how Elvis and Maite’s stories are so entwined but they cross paths fleetingly, setting up for an ending which felt so poignant and deserved. I really liked both characters and how well developed they were, I empathised for them in varying degrees and was rooting for them throughout. Maite, a woman who has felt like life has passed her by, seeking refuge in the weekly instalments of the romantic and sweeping comics and the foreign records she indulges in. Elvis with his life of petty crime and getting swept up into the harsh world of the Hawks, led by the capricious El Mago. I loved how through their perspectives we see how similar these two characters are, not only do they have an appreciation for the same music, books and for seeking knowledge, at their core they share the same sense of loneliness and a desire for connection.

Tied in with these two strong characters, is the undercurrent of tension and mystery with the case of Leonora, Maite’s beautiful and enigmatic neighbour who draws her into all the misadventures. I thought the mystery was compelling and I enjoyed reading as we got to learn more about the politics and backstory behind Leonora’s disappearance and the secrets she’s trying to protect. There was also a very informative current throughout the novel, relating to the ways in which political leaning organisations and individuals, including many student groups and other dissenting voices were silenced through violence and intimidation by the authorities. I appreciated the factual section at the end of the novel which explains this in further detail and definitely taught me things about Mexican history I was not previously aware of.

I would definitely recommend this novel to fans of the crime noir genre, as well as readers who have enjoyed Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s other novels and/ or readers looking for a unique and captivating story, with a strong focus on mystery and ambiguity.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is one of my favourite writers at the moment - I love how she can write across genres, and I've also learned a lot about Mexican history through reading her works. Velvet Was the Night was no exception to this...however I can definitely see a lot of people not enjoying as much as I did.

This book is not a fast-paced thriller. The mystery of the woman who has disappeared is not the point of this story, and in some ways isn't really all that important to the book (and in my opinion was maybe the weakest part of this book). Velvet Was the Night is much more of a character and period-piece, it is not particularly fast-paced, but more introspective with an evocative description of the political intrigue and unrest in 1970s Mexico.

I personally love character-driven novels, so I loved following the two perspectives of Maite and Elvis as they both worked to find Leonora (albeit from different sides). The mirroring of the protagonists was so cleverly done, and I particularly enjoyed Maite's voice, as she felt very different to other female protagonists that I've read about recently.

Overall, as it says in the description, this is a noir novel: it is moody and atmospheric with a focus on characters. So if you're looking for a fast-paced mystery/thriller this is not the book for you. But if you want a fascinating exploration of two different (but surprising similar) people living amidst political unrest and changing times, then I can't recommend Velvet Was the Night enough.

Unfortunately I dnfed this book around the 80 pages as I realized this book was not for me. The characters, the setting nor the plot did not work for me in this book. Which is a shame because I have loved every other Silvia Moreno-Garcia books i've read.

VELVET WAS THE NIGHT is a tense historical noir set in a Mexico under dictatorship as various different secret polices vie with one another for power and to control the media.

The book is dual POV, which works well to unspool the mystery and see what the various sides are doing without revealing all. The uncertainly over traitors and moles remain, but you can see the threat of these groups far more clearly.

On the one hand, we have Maite, a woman rather uninspired by her life who accidentally ends up tangled in a photograph hunt between three different (violent) groups when her neighbour asks her to feed her cat, and is very out of her depth. On the other, we have Elvis, a low-level member of one of the less official secret thug groups.

The two characters do not spend any time together really (a few times they happen in the same location without interacting beyond noticing, really, though Elvis is on surveillance to watch Maite.) However, they are deeply and intrinsically linked by the photos they are both after, and the conspiracy/web of secret police.

There’s a lot of music mentioned in the book, a shared love of books and records connecting the two characters. It was a nice touch to bring them into unintentional contact, to show how they compliment one another (they do not meet in the book really, so there isn’t a romance between them. Maite does, though, have a bit of a disastrous love life in the book – nothing and then nice that turns into a disaster.)

Apparently, according to the title page of the eARC, this is the second book in a series called “Revolution.” I must have missed that in the promo (though I can’t find any mention of this anywhere) and it reads perfectly fine on its own.

Score: 8.5/10

My full review can be found on my blog (link below).

The newest Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s book is a historical noir mystery/crime, set in the simmering danger of 1970s Mexico, when both the people and the country seemed inescapably gripped in a continuous, dispiriting turmoil. Whatever else you’ve read by this author, Velvet Was the Night might still surprise you. There’s not a whiff of supernatural anywhere; well, except for the very real horror that humans are capable of. There’s also not much of a romance, or beauty. Indeed, Velvet Was the Night is a surprisingly political book, depicting violent actions of increasingly more desperate, more ruthless factions of an internal conflict fueled by ideology, economy, and foreign interests. While its scope and stakes seem small – no grand assassinations or rebellions, no dramatic political shifts, just common people caught between a rock and a hard place – the ultimate price is still paid in the most valuable currency: human life and decency.

Throughout the novel we follow two protagonists, at first glance seeming as different from each other as they could possibly be: Elvis, a young member of the historical right-wing, government-trained paramilitary organization called Hawks (los Halcones) who were responsible for the Corpus Christi massacre in 1971 in Mexico City, in which over a hundred protesters were killed; and Maite, a 30-something secretary escaping her routine, lonely life into romance comics and American music. For Elvis, the membership in the Hawks is a form of social advancement; it gives him an anchor, a place of belonging, and means for learning new skills. Maite feels trapped in her own life, depressing and meaningless, always on the verge of debt; she makes up her own fantastic stories just to escape the dreary reality she doesn’t feel she can change. Neither of them is a revolutionary, a saint, or an idealistic warrior for truth or justice; they are just trying to scrape by. But in the 1970s in Mexico City even a shred of conscience or a simple coincidence might put you in trouble – as both Maite and Elvis will learn. Their fates draw close and finally intersect when evidence incriminating the Hawks in the students’ massacre goes missing, hidden somewhere by Maite’s rebellious but connected neighbor, Leonora.

[...]

While at first glance Velvet Was the Night seems unlike any other Moreno-Garcia’s work I’ve read, on a deeper level it’s still the same grand arc she writes in her every book: a story of the human search for connection. A story of imperfect, broken people looking for a bit of happiness in a world that’s anything but; a story of resilience and hope, surprising even for the protagonists themselves. And even though Velvet Was the Night is probably the most depressing of Moreno-Garcia’s books I’ve read so far, it is also weirdly satisfying in a way her other books weren’t. Maybe it’s the historical setting, and the very real circumstances in which the plot takes place; maybe it’s the noir character of the novel, subdued and gray, but also incredibly apt, considering the times it is depicting. Maybe it’s the bitter-sweet nostalgia cut with abrupt horror and underscored by the sentimental, throaty songs that play incessantly in the background, creating a unique mood – there’s a whole playlist here, and Moreno-Garcia kindly supplies all the titles at the end of the book (there’s even an accompanying Spotify playlist, if you want to enhance your experience). Whatever the reason, that hard-to-pinpoint, amorphous, moody presence makes Velvet Was the Night the best of Moreno-Garcia’s books I’ve read. It certainly won’t be the last, too – she’s a highly versatile, talented author with plenty of interesting stories to tell.

All in all, Velvet Was the Night is a well-crafted, intriguing historical political noir; a sweet and sad song to Mexico’s past, a heartfelt character study, a subdued maybe-romance hidden beneath puddles of blood and broken teeth.

I have received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks.