Velvet Was the Night

<b><i>GOOD MORNING AMERICA</i> BUZZ PICK • From the <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author of <i>Mexican Gothic</i> comes a simmering historical noir about a daydreaming secretary, a lonesome enforcer, and the mystery of the missing woman they’re both desperate to find.</b><br><br><b>ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: <i>The New York Times Book Review,</i> NPR, <i>The Washington Post, The Boston Globe,</i> New York Public Library, <i>Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, BookPage, She Reads, Library Journal</i> • “An adrenalized, darkly romantic journey.”—<i>The Washington Post</i></b><br><br>Mexico in the 1970s is a dangerous country, even for Maite, a secretary who spends her life seeking the romance found in cheap comic books and ignoring the activists protesting around the city. When her next-door neighbor, the beautiful art student Leonora, disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite finds herself searching for the missing woman—and journeying deeper into Leonora’s secret life of student radicals and dissidents. <br><br>Mexico in the 1970s is a politically fraught land, even for Elvis, a goon with a passion for rock ’n’ roll who knows more about kidney-smashing than intrigue. When Elvis is assigned to find Leonora, he begins a blood-soaked search for the woman—and his soul.  <br><br>Swirling in parallel trajectories, Maite and Elvis attempt to discover the truth behind Leonora’s disappearance, encountering hitmen, government agents, and Russian spies. Because Mexico in the 1970s is a noir, where life is cheap and the price of truth is high.