Rating: 
Summary: "This is not happening to me, she thought"
Review: I remember reading an article in the New York Times a little while ago in which a writer said that he decided whether or not to read a book based on the first sentence. He would continue reading only if he was hooked by this small sample. When I started reading this novel I thought to myself that Perez-Reverte must be of similar beliefs. The start of this work is so strong that it is hard to put it down after reading its first sentence, "The telephone rang, and she knew she was going to die".
The phone call Teresa Mendoza receives is a signal that Guero Davila, her lover, is dead and that she needs to run away. Thus starts a spectacular adventure full of twists and turns that will have the reader looking forward to the next development every step of the way. Guero was a drug dealer that was betraying his bosses, so when they discovered him, he was murdered and they proceeded to go after Teresa.
An anonymous writer who is doing research and writing a book on the life of this mysterious woman tells part of the story. As usual, Perez-Reverte goes back and forth in the story, mixing elements from different time periods relating to the main character's life. In this case, we soon learn that the writer meets Teresa twelve years after Guero's death when she is involved in a difficult situation with the Federales in Culiacan, Mexico. Therefore, the author is letting us know that the ending may be in line with his usual pattern: bitter-sweet.
After that interlude, Perez-Reverte goes back to the moment in which Teresa is forced to run and we are taken along in a magnificent roller-coaster ride that will show us how this character changes and evolves, fighting with her destiny and trying to survive. The author's great writing skills help in making us feel as if we were right in the middle of the action, and we find ourselves rooting for a woman that ends up involved in the world of drugs. Perez-Reverte also does a very good job in describing settings and people in places like Mexico and the US, immersing the reader in the ambiance of these locations.
As to our main character, one thing is certain, Teresa learned her lesson from her experience with Guero, and now she decides to take control of her life: "She was never going to wait for anybody again, watching telenovelas in some house in some city somewhere". This is the essence behind this main character, and whether you like the book or not will depend on how much you like Teresa, a strong and focused woman, who takes life as it was dealt to her and who has a significant amount of inner conflicts. As far as I am concerned, this character has enough interest by itself so as to make this one of the best books of 2004.
Rating: 
Summary: A Dud
Review: I wish I had read the negative reviews here before purchasing this book. The language is very tacky and the story boring. I gave up after about 100 pages and threw the book in the trash. I have read and enjoyed every other Arturo Perez-Reverte book and wonder if this one was ghost-written....
Rating: 
Summary: Another disappointed fan...
Review: I'm a huge fan of Perez-Reverte generally, but - like a couple of previous reviewers - am very disappointed with this one so far. I was warned that it's very slow to get going and I'm only on Pg 100 but I think I'm going to have to put this down for a while and try again later. Somehow it manages to be both sleazy and deadly dull. And why do all the characters and many of the bars and restaurants need so many different names and nicknames? It may be authentic, but it doesn't move the narrative forward and sure makes for tedious reading. The characters, including the heroine Theresa, seem flat, unreal and unattractive. Perez-Reverte has failed to breathe life into any of them. He does paint a vivid picture of the world of drug trafficking but that isn't enough to sustain this peculiarly lifeless story. If I change my mind when I come back and finish the book, I'll amend my review!
Rating:
Summary: I'm disappointed, Arturo
Review: I've been your adoring fan all through your other classy, elegant books, which are among my favorite fiction---especially "The Seville Communion." But "Queen of the South" is too much a departure, for me, from your usual stylish novels. I'm surprised at the rave reviews of many readers. I and my more discriminating reading friends don't understand why you wasted your talents on writing a book that borders on pulp trash about a sleazy woman in the sleazy drug world. There are already too many authors churning out pulp, disposable fiction. Did you just want to do something different? Okay, you've done that now, so please return to the Perez-Reverte that I knew and loved...and I'll return to adoring you.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard to believe this is Perez-reverte
Review: I've read all his previously translated novels, and felt they all had something in commmon...a sense, or aura, of mystery. Who are these people, what is really going on? At the heart of each of his previous novels were questions you could not wait to have answered. This novel read as a straightforward story. There was no mystery, you always knew exactly what was going on. To me, this was a disapointment. The story itself was fine, and as all his books are, very well written. There was just nothing special about it. I gave it three stars because it was beautifully written, but for Perez-Reverte, 3 stars is a major disappointment. If you read this, do not expect a typical story by him, expect something much more mainstream, something any of hundreds of authors could write.
Rating: 
Summary: An Updated Godfather Story
Review: In Queen of the South, Arturo Perez Reverte has moved from the rarified world of antique book sellers (Club Dumas), art historians,(Flanders Panel) and duelists (Fencing Master) to the gritty world of international drug trafficking. With this novel, Perez Reverte capitalizes in our fascination with crime. Not crime as practiced by the legions of petty criminals but high crime as practiced by international drug smugglers and mafia dons.
The novel's hero, Teresa Mendoza begins her story as the girl friend of a small time Mexican narco. With his murder, she is forced to flee Mexico. She works her way up from a barkeep in Spanish Morocco to the "Queen of the South", the most important smuggler of drugs in the Mediterranean. All this, in only twelve years.
Perez Reverte is an old fashioned story teller in the 19th Century tradition of Dumas or Hugo. He is very talented writer and uses all of his consierable skill to keep this story moving. There are plenty of well written scenes that get the heart beating and the hairs on the back of the neck to stand up. If I were rating this story on sheer writing talent, the Queen of the South would get five plus stars.
However, what keeps the Queen of the South from being a really good novel is the sense that the story is not plausable. For this type of story to work, Perez Reverte should take his cue from Mexico's Narco Corridos. At the end of a ballad by Los Tigres del Norte, you can always turn to the person sitting next to you and say, "Dicen que fue cierto" or They say it really happened.
The first two thirds of the novel are terrific. Perez Reverte has the feel of Sinaloa and the Straights of Gibralter just right. He started to lose me once Teresa begins her meteoric rise to the top of the drug trade. It is as though she goes from being a three dimensional character to a stereotype of a drug lord. It is as though Perez Reverte lost his story telling nerve.
In the greatest novel of this genre "The Godfather", Mario Puzo understood the importance of taking his time to tell the story of the rise of Vito Corleone. Like Teresa Mendoza, Vito Corleone must flee his homeland to escape assasins. Through cunning, hard work and violence, he rises from obscurity to become the head of a crime organization. Don Corleone's rise to power takes decades and his wholly believable. He is a believable character from start to finish. The Godfather in both its novel and movie form will be around for generations. While a good read, The Queen of the South's destiny is to be an ephemeral novel. Unfortunately, Perez Reverte did not have the nerve to make this a great novel.
Rating:
Summary: insightful look at drug trafficking
Review: Mexican drug-running pilot Guero Davila warned his girlfriend that if the cell phone he gave her ever rings, she must flee because he is dead and she is next. When the call came, the voice calmly told her that "They wasted Guero", killed his cousin, and she was high on the clean up list. Listening to the voice of Guero in her head, the panicked Teresa Mendoza runs for her life. Teresa knows that they will find her eventually so she must change from the innocent upbeat girl who a coke delivery pilot rescued from poverty to a major player. She chooses Spain to start out, but she is raped and incarcerated for her efforts. However, over the next dozen years, Teresa learns and begins to rise through the ranks until she becomes Narco's QUEEN OF THE SOUTH with a confrontation awaiting her with the Don of Mexican druglords. Though the men in Teresa's life are evanescent and never fully developed yet somehow seem fascinating (what if), readers receive an insightful look at drug trafficking through the exploits of the terrific protagonist. The story line actually plays out along two plots with the main theme being the rise to power of Teresa; the other subplot focuses on a reporter doing research into Teresa's life by interviewing felons and law enforcement officials who have known her. Thus, the audience obtains a second and at times a third perspective on events that shaped this intriguing anti-heroine. This strong novel falls a bit flat due to the weak support cast, but Arturo Pérez-Reverte still provides an intriguing thriller.
Rating:
Summary: Entry Level Arturo
Review: Perez-Reverte is at his most accessable in this Iberian soaked tale of drugs, death and defiance. Typically, his female lead is gutsy, gritty, gorgeous and ruminates on the eternal 'whys' of fate, love, mercy and cruelty.
The Queen of the South is tightly paced compared to many of Perez-Reverte's other novels and perhaps because of this the depth of nuance found in The Fencing Master or The Nautical Chart, is missing here. Still we cannot help but want more.
Perez-Reverte writes with a touch that is personal to everyone and accessable to many. The Queen of the South may also be the best-translated of his novels. For those new to the genre, its a great entry point into the best Spanish-speaking literature we have today.
Rating:
Summary: Five +. Could be a "Godfather" if it was written in the U.S.
Review: Teresa Mendoza reminds me a little of Matty Walker in Body Heat, the searing, thrilling, sensual movie of 1980's fame. We're not really sure of how Matty got to where she is when we first see her, and like that, we really aren't certain of where we start with Teresa.
Certainly, Perez-Reverte seems to paint a picture of innocence when 'the phone rings.' Sexy innocence. I can't recall any novel of such intense excitement beginning with the heroine shaving her legs. But maybe Perez-Reverte is having a joke on us. Perhaps he's saying, 'not innocence my friend, but naivete. Untested. Unaware.' Once she gets to her safe house a few pages later she takes a hit of coke. All is not as we first perceived. Come to think of it, most if not all of Perez-Reverte's characters are never as first observed.
He is a remarkable author, a combination of all of our "name" brands writing in Spain, certainly popular all over Europe and now with a substantial following in the US. And this is a remarkable book with heavy doses of greed, sexism, crime, desire, retribution and redemption.
When her lover, Guero Davilla, a pilot smuggling drugs is killed, she knows she will be next. Such is the way it will be in Sinola, Mexico, he warns her repeatedly, as he left a cell phone for her with only one purpose, to tell her that he has been killed. Or tortured and killed. Then the Mexican narcotic traffickers, the narcos, will kill the entire family of the traitor. Guero says he will hold out as long as he can but eventually he will tell them where to find her. He says "the phone will ring and if you don't run, soon you will see someone you know. He will smile at you. And then you are a dead woman."
The only thing that Guero left besides $20,000 and a Colt Double Eagle pistol was a diary of events and places, and of course, names. He tells her under no circumstances should she read the diary but to turn it over to his old narco boss, don Epfanio Vargas. She does this, and the don spares her life and gives her a 24 hour start.
The other thing about Perez-Reverte is that his diction and description and dialogue are all just beautiful. He reminds me of Alan Furst who writes about pre World War Europe, detailing violent events in a rich, deep style.
The journey takes Mendoza one step away from death to one of the most powerful drug lords in the world. She's a strong, beautiful character. The story is detailed in narrative style told to and through a journalist. The characters are rich and three dimensional. A great story rivaling in intensity some of the greatest crime tales in America. 5 Stars, could have been twice as many. Larry Scantlebury
Rating:
Summary: "I think there are dreams that can kill you."
Review: The drug trade throughout Mexico, Latin America, and the Mediterranean come alive in Arturo Perez-Reverte's latest novel, quite different from his intellectual mysteries. Here he writes the "biography" of Teresa Mendoza, a young woman from Sinaloa, Mexico, who becomes the mastermind of a multimillion dollar drug empire operating from Marbella, Spain. This novel's challenge lies not in an intellectual puzzle, but in understanding the business networks Teresa builds with drug lords from Russia, Italy, Morocco, and Colombia, along with various agents of government whom she buys off. As she becomes a successful businesswoman, known as "The Queen of the South," the suspense develops: Will she stay alive? And how?
The story begins in Mexico when Teresa is twenty-three. Uneducated but attractive, she is in love with Guero Davila, a Chicano pilot involved in shipping coca. When she suddenly receives a phone call telling her to run for her life, she does so, escaping through Mexico City into Spain, and then Morocco. Putting her knowledge of drug transportation to work by involving herself in hash-running between Morocco and Spain, she ends up with a short jail sentence but an important friendship with another inmate, Patty O'Farrell, the rebellious daughter of a wealthy Spanish family. When they are released, they set up a big-time drug trafficking business, with Teresa running the show and becoming, eventually, the person with whom everyone in the business must deal.
Teresa's story is not told in linear fashion. An unnamed speaker/narrator, presumably Perez-Reverte himself, has come to Sinaloa to investigate and describe Teresa Mendoza's life and business. Interviewing everyone with any information, he inserts himself and his interviews into the narrative. Soon the line begins to blur between fiction and fact, since some of the people he interviews, such as the three people to whom he dedicates the novel, are, in fact, real people who are included as characters in the novel. These add depth and a fine sense of realism to the novel.
Although Teresa Mendoza is not a character with whom the reader will identify, the author develops a certain amount of sympathy for her. Teresa is an entrepreneur of great intelligence, and this, combined with her ability to avoid creating any sort of trail that will implicate her legally, keeps her going in her dog-eat-dog world. The novel is episodic but fast paced, despite the sometimes unwelcome intrusions of the narrator/speaker, and Perez-Reverte succeeds in presenting a broad, intriguing picture of the business of drug smuggling and those who make it their careers. Mary Whipple
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