Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord

Louis de Bernieres's first novel, The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, received extraordinary critical acclaim. Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord confirms that he is one of the most original talents at work in English fiction.
Dionisio Vivo, a young South American lecturer in philosophy, is puzzled by the corpses that keep turning up outside his front door. His friend Ramon, possibly the only honest policeman in town, finds the message all too clear: Dionisio's letters to the press, exposing the murderous domination of the drug barons, must stop. The local coca lord sends a series of hit men to silence Dionisio, but he seems to lead a charmed life, insulated by a sense of justice and by his own pigheaded integrity. But if he is in a sense protected, he is by no means immune, and protection does not extend to those he loves. It is love that makes Dionisio vulnerable to betrayal, love that leads him to colossal revenge.
Set in a world where the supernatural is perfectly routine, where wit and affection can blossom in a sump of corruption, where ancient deities walk the streets while the drug trade warps an entire society, Dionisio's battle links disparate strands into a dazzling whole. As in his first novel, Louis de Bernieres turns a quizzical and unblinking gaze on the magical and the mundane, on tenderness and atrocity, on farce and disaster.