by
Ernest Hogan
Things go better with salsa. Especially if makes the inner ears
tingle. It sure can make a night better.
When
I saw the title Salsa Nocturna: A Bone Street Rumba Collection
by
Daniel José Older.
I
was intrigued. Salsa after dark suggest death and Latin music. It's
the sort of thing that gets my attention.
I had read one of the
stories (they popped up in various magazines and
anthologies, and liked it. Ghosts in a very gritty, contemporary New
York, fast-paced, fantastic, and feeling very real.
I
dug in, and enjoyed.
Salsa
Nocturna isn't
just a story collection. The stories all take place in the same
haunted New York, often dealing with agents of the New York Council
of the Dead.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXDnwxDnUPvfqRWn62EyLBdLo4hoZLJBju_8qnTYIqLDHWizaOCOnALpMwv2598QuEjv5bINpe_FW6msED7oYef8gnf-kf9W_t-aSqZfsWVdb43cyvgva-NFwfn6bHjMpId-pYYg/s640/9781625672414_p0_v1_s600x595.jpg)
I
was constantly surprised. At first I was expecting a police
procedural-style stories following a formula that could be easily
adapted into a TV show or comic book--after all, that would be good
business. But the volatile mix of the contents bubbles and varies, in
length, format, subject. The all take place in this same setting, but
there’s a whole lot of things going on.
Reading
Sala
Nocturna
is
a lot like being in a strange city, and wandering the bustling
streets, full of mysterious, and fascinating things and goings on.
You see the sights, head the sounds, smell the smells, feel the
rhythms. It’s scary--and alluring. You find yourself exploring,
wanting more, wanting to possess the urban environment.
And
of course the urban environment is all the while possessing you.
What
more could you want from a book?
Maybe
what you really want is more. And
there are more. The Bone Street Rumba universe is further explored in
the novels Half-ResurrectionBlues,
Midnight Taxi Tango,
and Battle Hill Bolero.
Ernest Hogan’s story “PeaceCon,” a slapstick comedy about social
unrest and mind control, starring his masked luchador Steelsnake,
will be in the next issue of Unfit Magazine.
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