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The Devil of the Provinces by Juan Cardenas

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The Devil of the Provinces

by Juan Cardenas

Narrator Asa Siegel

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Translator Lizzie Davis

Length 3 hours 22 minutes

Language English

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Bookseller recommendation

“In a novel as concise as this one, every word counts, and Cárdenas certainly makes the most of them in this enigmatic tale, steeped with meaning. The writing style is superb, and the content and structure are weird, as I’ve come to anticipate from literary horror. Touching on subjects like legacy, climate change, and cultish Catholicism, with conspiracy theories being its most prominent theme, the novel seems to revolve around the question, What leads us to believe in things others find impossible? I was particularly intrigued by the discussion of telenovela culture and perceived reality. In short, the unnamed narrator grieves his brother, having returned to a home he’d rather have left behind only to become ensnared in a sinister web of secrecy. ”
— Mary • Raven Book Store

Summary

After a series of failures, a biologist returns to his hometown to live with his grieving mother. But in this gripping crime novel that upends the genre's conventions, strange events unravel what he thought he knew of his past, his present, and himself.

When a biologist returns to Colombia after fifteen years abroad, he quickly becomes entangled in the trappings of his past and his increasingly bizarre present: the unsolved murder of his brother, a boarding school where girls give birth to strange creatures, a chance encounter with his irrevocably changed first love. A brush with a well-connected acquaintance leads to a biotechnology job offer, and he's gradually drawn into a web of conspiracy. Ultimately, he may be destined to remain in the city he'd hoped never to see again—in The Devil of the Provinces, nothing is as it seems.

Fiction Mystery & Thriller Fiction - Literary