Buried in debt due to his young daughter’s illness, his marriage at the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel’s cash shipment before it reaches Mexico. Along with an old friend and a cartel-insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on the near-suicidal mission, which will leave him with either a cool $200,000 or a bullet in the skull. But the path to reward or ruin is never as straight as it seems. As the three complicated men travel through the endless landscape of Texas, across the border and back, their hidden motivations are laid bare alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation. One thing is certain: even if Mario makes it out alive, he won’t return the same.
Stunning. One of my books of the year.
A father takes a job as a hitman to save his daughter and goes on a journey into darkness. Dark and bleak, but breathtakingly good. When I finished it, I knew that it will be top of my books of the year list, and I was only eight days into January. It’s THAT good.
Crime, mystery, thriller, terrifyingly dark, The Devil Takes You Home is just incredible. The writing is superb and the story is unrelenting, taking Mario on a journey through some very dark places that you’ll never forget.
This is a short review, and probably struggle to even call it that. Noir of the very finest kind. It’s not for the faint-hearted, but will live with you for a long, long time.
12/10, cannot recommend highly enough.
The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias is published by Wildfire and is out now. Many thanks to the publisher for the finished copy for review.
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