BORDERLAND

  

“All roads lead to borderlands of one sort or another”, says Craig McDonald in his introduction. La Frontera has a mystical hold on the imagination of the crime reader, it’s not so much the reality as the myth. “That delicious, dark eyed myth of the border”, Tom Russell (song writer). The border conjures images of The Day of the Dead, Narcotraficantes, refugees, mariachi and the north/south divide (the rich and the poor). McDonald is keen to point out that borders are a state of mind, it’s not just the physical border, it’s not just about a place or a geographical location. You can imagine it even if you’ve never been to the borderlands.

These pieces reflect on people’s experience as refugees, economic migrants, victims and perpetrators as well as on their desire and desperation. Wider themes are memory, history, corruption and crime – the value of life, and it’s infinite variety along the border. What the frontier does to people and the light we see them in. Villains include a rapist, people slavers, right-wing border guards and vigilantes. These stories are influenced by the best noir traditions, by writers like James M. Cain, novels like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and literary writers like Graham Greene.

‘Coyote’s Ballad’ by Mike MacLean deals with two mules (people smugglers), Cruz and Miguel, transporting ten pollos (chickens/people), across the border to sell. Humans as commodities. A young girl is raped and murdered. Rough justice is served but not for the sake of the girl, for greed and for expediency.

‘To Have To Hold’ by Ken Bruen (an Irish man surely knows about borders!). Charlene is a mad Johnny Cash fan and she is in a pickle for killing a man.

‘Trailer de Fuego’ by Garnett Elliott. Tench beats a prisoner to make a point for the inmates and the other guards, to establish that ‘the jungle’ has enforcement if not law. Actions have unforeseen consequences in a case of poetic justice.

‘Reading the Footnotes’ by John Stickney deals with two men in a car, Federal Agents or killers or both. Postulating on Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and echoes of Breaking Bad.

‘The Work of Wolves’ by Bradley Mason Hamlin. Devin is pondering the nature of evil. Talking about getting away from his family, going to Universidad, all the while torturing and murdering a man who can’t escape and has to listen to his rambling monologue.

‘Traven’ by Martin Solares is an homage to Ben Traven, writer of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Sam Hawkens ‘Corrida de toros’ deals with a man murdered in his hotel room with a six-inch stiletto and Tom Russell muses in ‘Where God and The Devil Wheel Like Vultures’ on murder and recent history around Ciudad Juárez.

There are two brilliant essays. One on 'Touch of Evil', the Orson Welles movie, and the other on 'Pancho Villa', revolutionary and bandit. Zeltsman tells the story of one of the great noir movies, a tale that happens across the border. Vargas, Charlton Heston, a narcotics investigator in Mexico, witnesses a murder. Dietrich delivers the classic noir line at the end of the film: “He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about People?” Pancho Villa is a potted history of the notorious bandit.

The tales are spare; noir prose, short meaningful stories, pithy dialogue and all direct to the point. This is the heart of noir. Darkly entertaining, a really interesting mix of stories and essays.

FOREWORD by Craig McDonald, Then (Excerpt from El Gavilan by Craig McDonald), PART I: NORTH OF THE BORDER: Mike MacLean: Coyote’s Ballad, Ken Bruen: To Have and To Hold, Garnett Elliott: Trailer de Fuego, John Stickney: Reading the Footnotes, Stephen D. Rogers: Tumbled, Craig McDonald: Broken Promised Land, PART II: BORDERLAND (FILM) NOIR): Dave Zeltserman: Touch of Evil, PART III: THE CENTAUR OF THE NORTH: Jim Cornelius: Pancho Villa—Fourth Horseman of the Mexican Apocalypse PART IV: SOUTH OF THE BORDER: Manuel Ramos: No Hablo Inglés, Bradley Mason Hamlin: Work of Wolves, Martín Solares: B.Traven (excerpted from The Black Minutes), James Sallis: Ferryman, Sam Hawken: Corrida de Toros, AFTERWORDS: Tom Russell: Where God and The Devil Wheel Like Vultures, Now (Excerpt from El Gavilan by Craig McDonald)