La politica es la politica: January 2014

Sunday 12 January 2014

Embassy suspends visits to Canadian jailed in Mexico

A Mexican jail

An unclassified letter dated November 15, 2013, and obtained by La politica, has confirmed what Bruce Vigfusson, a Canadian currently serving a four-and-a-half year sentence in a Mexican jail for assault, has been saying for some time: in-person visits from Canadian embassy personnel have been suspended due to Mr. Vigfusson’s “verbally aggressive” behaviour toward a consular officer.

Mezcalero, a Detective Sánchez novel

Bicultural and transgender, detective Ernesto Sánchez seeks a missing Canadian woman on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Moving uneasily in a world where benign tourism co-exists with extreme violence, he becomes a pawn in a shadowy power-play between corrupt police and drug cartels. Forced to make hard choices – desperate, wounded, and friendless – Sánchez takes refuge in the lawless mountains of Oaxaca. And discovers his fate.

Praise for Mezcalero:

“Wilson’s Mezcalero is a real-pager turner…While the milieu of Wilson’s novel is reminiscent of the hard-boiled tradition, his creation of P.I. Ernesto Sánchez is original, and helps Wilson push the boundaries with respect to genre. Sánchez is a hard-hitting private eye, but Wilson also depicts him as struggling with many of the issues that transgender individuals typically face; in this manner, Wilson creates both a riveting mystery and timely story about navigating life as a gender nonconforming individual.”

Heather Duerre Humann, author of Gender Bending Detective Fiction: A Critical Analysis of Selected Works.

“Mezcalero is a remarkable read, with sustained suspense, surprise explosions of poetry and violence, and some new answers to old questions...Wilson understands something about violence and gender that I have never encountered before: that women’s violence is perhaps the most feared. Sanchez’s womanly violence in his manly body is a mystery revealed, a truth told that we suspected all along. This is a profoundly feminist book. The women in the book are the power brokers, the activators of action; even the most oppressed empleada is a container of her own complete power. Mezcalero is deftly plotted, and deploys an acrobatic narrative that is, frankly, exhilarating. Sanchez has a lot to teach us. Wilson, too.”

Janette Platana, author of A Token of My Affliction (2015 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize; 2016 English Language Trilium Book Award finalist).

“T.E. Wilson’s Mezcalero is, as a novel, a tacit consequence of the author’s real-world work as a reporter/journalist in Mexico. His work is rich in essence, and rich in detail, of how widespread organized crime and corruption permeate Mexican society. Highly recommended. This is great, well-grounded fiction.”

Dr. Edgardo Buscaglia, Senior Research Scholar in Law and Economics, Columbia University, and President of the Citizens’ Action Institute (Instituto de Acción Ciudadana).

“T.E. Wilson has crafted a terrific, terrifying and yet sensationally witty portrait of modern Mexico. Detective Sánchez is irresistible. You won’t soon forget his journey through that unpredictable jungle that is Mexico today.”

León Krauze, Mexican journalist, author and news anchor.

You can order a paper copy here, and the Kindle edition here. To find out more, go to DetectiveSanchez.com.