All Tod remembers when he wakes up next to a dead prostitute is that he had his first shot of heroin the night before. He and his wife, Linda, were partying with their new neighbors, a trio of parole violators who fled to Mexico after robbing a Beverly Hills jewelry store. Now the place is empty, stripped clean except for Tod’s hunting knife, which is covered in blood. Did he kill the woman, or was he left behind as the fall guy? Convinced that his junkie friends abducted Linda to keep her from talking to the police, Tod buys a gun and prepares himself to do whatever it takes to get his wife back before he makes a run for the border.
By turns chilling and humorous, Mañana marks the return of a stylish thriller writer as he shines a light on 1960s counterculture and the dark recesses of the human mind and heart.
Published: May 12, 2015
My Review: 
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I have mixed feelings on this book. I enjoyed the author’s style. His phrasing immediately drew me into the story.
My own nightmare began late in the morning of Holy Thursday when I woke up soaked in blood.
For me, the strongest aspect of this story is setting. The author puts us right with the characters, sparking all our senses so that we feel as if we’re there in Mexico with them.
Then there’s the not-so-good stuff, which mostly overshadows the positives. There is very little character development here. The story is written in first person, from Tod’s perspective, yet virtually the only things we learn about him are that he likes to travel and get high. We’re given flashbacks of the couple’s past together, which is the only way we learn anything about their relationship and history.
We feared open shutters might betray our hazy asylum to the festive world outside and kept the private party to ourselves, manic, bottled-up, claustrophobic, a sextet of neurotics pretending to have fun, going through the motions, sleepwalkers on a treadmill.
The plot doesn’t go anywhere until past the halfway point. The first half of the book is Tod bumbling his way through Mexico in search of his wife, but keeping himself too stoned to reasonably function. When the plot finally does pick up speed and become interesting, something happens with Tod’s wife that I just couldn’t reconcile with the image portrayed of her in the first half of the story.
The sixties counterculture was about a lot more than marijuana and acid trips, yet none of this is ever referenced. We don’t learn about the couple’s experiences in San Francisco, who they mingled with or how they felt about the social and political aspects. We don’t know their political leanings. I have to assume Tod is a draft dodger, but there are no war references at all so my assumption is based solely on the fact that he doesn’t appear to be a Vietnam veteran.
This book is set in one of my favorite eras to read about, and perhaps the lack of detail colors my opinion. In the end, there is very little substance to cling to. It’s one of those books I could have put down without ever finishing.
Thanks for reading. 
