House of Jaguar Book Club

Mike Bond's House of Jaguar  is a thriller which revolves around the protagonist Murphy, a Vietnam veteran who now makes his living flying drugs deep in the jungle.  True to Bond's writing style as read in The Last Savanna and Saving Paradise, his novels comprise  descriptions not for the faint of heart as well as steadfast political commentary:

The priest lay with his cheekbone crushed, his nose ripped open and bent to one side.  His collarbone looked broken, too, one arm dislocated at the elbow and shoulder.  The wrist was bent, too, clearly broken.  Lucky for him, Lyman thought, that I was there to save him.  (59)

For me, the difficulties lie in the seemingly invincible characteristics of the male in this novel:  able to release himself  from the confines of rope, overtake four men in a weakened state, and then commandeer a falling helicopter in order to fly off into the sunset with his life force after being beaten, chased, starved, etc.  Really?

In addition, Bond's stream of consciousness placement of words on the page resulted in a disjointed storyline which distracted along with the numerous grammatical errors.  The potential is there, but this piece of work needs a good cleansing from an editor.

For the purposes of book club, monkey stew complete with short, coarse hairs could be an option, but Andrew Zimmern I am not.  Instead, a spread with various tortilla dishes sounds more appetizing for the masses.