Wraiths of the Broken Land
This review contains spoilersDown in Mexico around 1900, two sisters are forced into prostitution at a gentlemen’s club. The sisters have two brothers and a father, making up the Plugfords, an outlaw gang that also includes a former slave, an Indian who eats bird brains, and the tactical leader, a brutal, hollowed-out gunman, or “wraith.” They’re too rough a bunch to go after Mexican gentlemen head-on, so they hire a “dandy,” the penniless Nathaniel Stromler, to find the fancy brothel and ascertain if the sisters are alive. Bloody mayhem ensues, though it’s clever mayhem, narrated with Zahler’s self-conscious, pedantic, but ultimately irresistible style, and it leads to a riveting climax. Zahler’s style is most of the tale; the Indian and the gunman, for instance, are stock characters but rendered with a wild flourish. Stromler and the hapless Samuel Upfield, who sold the sisters into slavery, receive fuller treatment, but really this is a compulsively readable dime novel—or its evil twin. Fans of Zahler’s A Congregation of Jackals (2010) will be satisfied; think Quentin Tarentino’s Django Unchained. --John Mort