I Read Books: Cari Mora

 

Cari Mora

Caridad Mora was a child soldier in Colombia, now she is a refugee with temporary protected status in Miami. She works several jobs, trying to stay under the radar. One is working with wildlife at Pelican Island (real), another is caretaker of a house that once belonged to notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar (real).

Now some of Escobar’s secrets are coming out. Sadistic human trafficker and mutilator Hans-Peter Schneider has rented the house, pretending he and his gang are a film crew. The rumour is that there is $25 Million in gold hidden on the property. After meeting Cara he decides on a whim she should be surgically altered and sold to one of his clients, one of his specialities.

Cara though has friends, including some who are part of the Ten Bells gang. They also have contacts in Colombia, and learn of the possibility of the gold being found. Posing as labourers they discover a hole where the sea has undercut the lawn, and see there is something under there. However Schnieder is alerted and they have to escape.

This then becomes a heist with two competing crews, as well as the authorities (who everyone wants to avoid). There’s also a crocodile, and Cari has her own, small ambitions, a house, care for her aunt, perhaps even a more secure immigration status (“Better papers” – published in 2019 under the first Trump administration temporary protected status could be removed at any time). The Ten Bells hang together with respect and friendship and loyalty, their crimes thefts and fraud. Schneider’s crew are generally nastier, more violent with Schneider a full blow psychopath, also completely hairless for a classic disfigured villain.

Comparisons can be unfair; still this is a novel by Thomas Harris, best known for The Silence Of The Lambs and other Hannibal Lecter stories. This has some of his rich explorations of places and events. The house is filled with sets and oddities from previous filming, the security system is detailed, and when the house is searched what various members of Schneider’s crew have left are listed. Cari’s time with FARC as a child soldier, the strangeness of life in a jungle guerilla camp, how kidnapping works. We get the history of Pelican Island, and Cari’s family and home. When she’s with her cousin and aunt she looks after her cousin’s baby in the middle of the night in a touching, intimate scene that is slightly askew. And Schneider, the monster, well he’s no Hannibal Lecter. But who is?

Read This: Entertaining heist thriller with some well-observed scenes
Don’t Read This: Scattered and not especially deep with some very unpleasant deaths