Book Review: Blue Diablo by Ann Aguirre

Blue Diablo by Ann Aguirre
ROC
316 Pages
Copyright 2009

Corine Solomon is a handler – a person who can read inanimate objects and tell the object’s history and sometimes its future. It’s a gift she wasn’t born with – it was forced on her by her mother during a tragic episode from her childhood.

Corine is living in Mexico City running a junk story. Her life is quiet and unexciting, which is exactly what she wants after an earlier life that was anything but. She wants nothing more to do with that life, a life spent finding people. It’s a life that caused her pain and put her in danger.

Her quiet life is interrupted, however, when her ex manager and ex lover, Chance, shows up on her doorstep needing her help. His mother, Min, has gone missing, leaving behind a small Buddha which they both know can help Corine find her. In spite of her doubts about Chance, Corine leaves her quiet life behind to help a woman she’d come to love. It’s a journey that will lead to pain and secrets, new friends, a deeper understanding of her ‘gift’, and a secret of such magnitude that people are willing to kill for it. Chance and Corine find themselves in a race to find Min before it’s too late.

This is one of ‘those’ books for me. I’m not in love with it and I don’t feel I need to run out and get the sequel. I’m curious, but not frantic, about the sequel. And, I’m not entirely sure what the problem is.

One of the reasons I wasn’t thrilled with the book is the fact that I’m not crazy about Corine. She was a little too whiny for me. She complains too much about almost everything – her gift, the fact that Chance isn’t the man she thinks he should be, the loss of her quiet life. It became annoying after awhile. I wasn’t all that crazy about Chance, either, but I liked him a little better than Corine. He was a man under a lot of pressure but he handled it well enough. Jesse Saldana was my favorite character but again, he didn’t grab my imagination or my attention as completely as I would’ve liked. Maybe if he'd been fleshed out a little more.

My main problem, however, has to do with a reoccuring theme. Corine doesn’t trust anyone easily. It has to do with her past but for me, that past wasn’t brought out well enough. It’s left a little vague and it seems to be based on a premise that I find difficult to believe. Another, still having to do with trust, also has to do with cops. Aguirre continually paints cops as targeting her because of her gift. They believe her to be a con artist, out to take people for all she can. I’m not sure that attitude is all that prevalent in law enforcement any more. Cops today are far more open-minded. And, the final problem, the one I have the most trouble dealing with, is Aguirre gets some basic facts wrong. I don’t know of any place in this country where a suspect can be held without being charged, yet Corine says it can be done. And there’s this:

“Holy shit,” I said, clambering to my feet.

His smile came, a little easier that time. “Top of my class, marksmanship. Usually it’s a paper guy that I shoot through the head, but same principle.”

It’s true that police officers shoot at paper targets bearing the silhouette of a man pointing a gun at them. However, no police officer is taught to shoot that man in the head. We are taught to shoot center mass – in the chest. It’s a little thing and I probably shouldn’t let it bug me at all, but it does, enough to dampen my enjoyment of the book just a tad.

Recommendation: In spite of all the things wrong, the story is still a good one and Aguirre keeps it moving well enough. It’s a good mix of the paranormal and the normal that I enjoyed enough to keep reading. I find myself, however, wish for a little bit more.