Few authors inspire the kind of passion that Arturo Pérez-Reverte does. Reviewers, readers, and booksellers alike have embraced his fiction as the perfect blend of suspense and literary ambition. A global bestseller, he is one of the most admired and widely read authors in the world. And his stunning new novel is his best yet.
A remarkable tale, The Queen of the South spans continents, from the dusty streets of Mexico to the sparkling waters off the coast of Morocco, to Spain and the Strait of Gibraltar. A sweeping story set to the irresistible beat of the drug smugglers' ballads, it encompasses sensuality and cruelty, love and betrayal, as its heroine's story unfolds.
Teresa Mendoza's boyfriend is a drug smuggler who the narcos of Sinaloa, Mexico, call "the king of the short runway," because he can get a plane full of coke off the ground in three hundred yards. But in a ruthless business, life can be short, and Teresa even has a special cell phone that Guero gave her along with a dark warning. If that phone rings, it means he's dead, and she'd better run, because they're coming for her next.
Then the call comes.
In order to survive, she will have to say goodbye to the old Teresa, an innocent girl who once entrusted her life to a pinche narco smuggler. She will have to find inside herself a woman who is tough enough to inhabit a world as ugly and dangerous as that of the narcos-a woman she never before knew existed. Indeed, the woman who emerges will surprise even those who know her legend, that of the Queen of the South.
“John Le Carre meets Gabriel Garcia Marquez…Pérez-Reverte has a huge following…and it’s spreading.” —The Wall Street Journal
“A modern-day epic…bearing the unmistakable ring of authenticity and a slam-bang narrative sure to resonate with legions of appreciative readers…All the core elements, after all, are here: love, violence, betrayal and honor.” —Los Angeles Times
“The Da Vinci Code and The Rule of Four…pale in comparison with Pérez-Reverte novels…Pérez-Reverte shines in some white-knuckles action sequences…but his greatest triumph is [his] heroine.” —Time Out New York
“Pérez-Reverte’s literary thriller explodes with history, heartbreak [and] determination…An epic suspense story of heart and grit.” —Entertainment Weekly (Editor’s Choice)
Spanish Language Commentary
En La reina del sur, este autor nos muestra, con la maestría que acostumbra, que sus exploraciones de la realidad pueden convertirse en la ficción más sorprendente. Que sólo alguien como él puede crear un personaje literario que trasciende esa realidad para convertirse en héroe. Pero esta vez el héroe es una mujer: Teresa Mendoza. Una mujer sola que crea un imperio de la nada en un mundo de hombres duros, el del narcotráfico. Una persona capaz de todo y de nada porque la letra de su vida no la ha escrito ella. La reina del sur es, sin duda, una novela que arrasa, que sorprende, que perturba.
