Rattlesnake - Softcover

Arias, Arturo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1931896011 ISBN 13: 9781931896016

Publisher: Curbstone Books, 2003

Synopsis

Set in '80s Guatemala, this suspenseful spy story succeeds as a thriller, as a love story, and as an indictment of human rights violations in that troubled country. Tom Wright is a CIA agent who has been sent to Guatemala to rescue Mr. Gray, an Australian banker who has allegedly been abducted by the EGP, a guerilla organization. Wright must work with the Guatemalan government to achieve his objective, but he must also survive a personal conflict, in the form of Sandra Herrera, the first love of his life, who has married into one of Guatemala's most powerful and wealthy families. When she drops into his life again, he loses his equilibrium and exposes himself to a host of dangers. A mysterious woman with murky motives and multiple connections (to the oligarchy, to the military

About this title

About the Author

Arturo Arias is director of Latin American studies at the University of Redlands. Co-writer for the screenplay for the film El Norte (1984), his most recent novel in English is titled After the Bombs (Curbstone Press, 1990). Author of six novels in Spanish-Despues de las bombas (1979), Itzam Na (1981), Jaguar en Llamas (1989), Los Caminos de Paxil (1991) Cascabel (1998), and Sopa de Caracol (2002)-he is also widely known for his literary criticism. Show More

Translator Seán Higgins was born in New York in 1961 and has traveled extensively in Latin America. He has translated many works of Latin American literature for magazines and anthologies in the U.S. Currently he is a bilingual resource teacher at Grant Elementary School in the San Jose Unified School District.

Translator Jill Robbins is an associate professor of contemporary Spanish literature and culture at the University of California-Irvine.

From Booklist

In this seamy, steamy spy thriller from Latin American novelist Arias, Tom Wright, an American CIA agent, is sent into Guatemala to rescue an Australian banker who has been kidnapped by a guerrilla organization known as EGP. It's a tough assignment, and Wright doesn't count on a further complication: encountering a former lover who has married into one of the country's wealthiest and most influential families and who, it seems, is keeping many secrets, some of which may spell disaster for our hero. Arias effectively combines an enticing, erotically charged atmosphere with plenty of straight-ahead adventure--dangerous villains, questionable good guys, and a few (such as the lisping Behemoth, Wright's embassy contact) who could go either way. The translation ranges from lyrical ("the liquid invisibility of eroticism") to awkward ("an excessive repetition of unattractive anatomies") but mostly manages to capture the subtlety and depth of Arias' prose. David Pitt
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Edition details

• Publisher: Curbstone Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1931896011
• ISBN 13: 9781931896016
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 228