Comments

“The author achieves what every novelist desires, which is to keep the reader confused and misled, something he does right until the very end.  It makes us feel like spectators at a chess game in which politics, corruption and crime records are the game pieces moved by the abject interests of the characters.”

Aristides Royo – Ex-President of Panama and essayist. Member of the Panamanian Academy of Language

“Really important, unusual novel in many respects:

Not intended to create false intrigues or amazing pies in the sky: it is contrived deciphering for us the goings that are lived daily at all political levels and power circles which can be extrapolated to any current country and not only to countries with young democracies of cultural, historical or monetary weakness as is pointed out by one of the characters. Actually, this novel presents a universal truth, and it does not do it as a media scheme but rather with intelligence, elegance and measure. It is as valuable as other political or social novels that have also been written by some South Americans, such as Sabato or Edwards, or by the Spaniard Rafael Chirbes. But at the same time this novel has some elements of Le Carré, because there is always surprise and intrigue.  Nevertheless I say, it accomplishes this not in the manner of fireworks or pies in the sky, it is more cautious, very little contrived. So, on the one hand, it has the value of novels by Chirbes (we discover political and social realities, areas on which very few writers dare to venture), and on the other hand it works as an action and intrigue novel, although in reality the author is less fantastic than Le Carré.

 -The characters “are”. We believe everyone exists. Moreover, we extrapolate our social reality. This fazes us, yet it also assures us: in the end it is honor, righteousness, what is humanly right and desirable, that will be victorious. Yes, certainly Morgan shows us our world; he has hit the mark. And not as savior, saviors are for example those with the white hand, what horror. He does so with the elegance of he who gives us the truth without trying to dazzle, only to serve others. To me, of course, this work by Morgan is not only of my liking, I’m interested, I’m entertained, but it also has aided me in giving a name to the reality that we live in so that I am able to position myself in it as a social element and as a person.”

Elisa Fenoy – Critic and writer

“The detective novella is indeed a very special genre, one which requires even more than the historical novels that we are used to seeing from Juan David, because it does not depend on historical facts which support its plot: it is creativity floating alone under the author’s sole control.

And Juan David Morgan leads that ship into unknown seas in two different planes, with equal skill. On the one hand solving complicated ethical conflicts of the characters and on the other hand keeping the suspense in the story “.

Jorge Eduardo Ritter – Lawyer, member of the Panamanian Academy of Language, former Foreign Minister and former Minister of the Canal, Panama