MARIO Vargas Llosa’s latest novel, The Discreet Hero, is the stuff of classic thriller movies. The book offers extortionists, an upright old man, a hopeless romantic, honest infidelity, mistaken paternity, a mysterious stranger, blackmail, and a runaway bride, just to name a few of the intriguing characters. The main protagonist is 55-year-old Felícito Yanaqué, a man of “insignificant appearance — a little man, so thin, so small” who has “a cast-iron character and a bullet-proof will”. One unfortunate morning Felícito receives an anonymous extortionist letter signed with a spider drawing. His transportation company is a source of pride for this simple and straightforward businessman. For him the idea of paying protection money to thugs is abhorrent on account of his principles. From the very first page Llosa builds a compelling storyline that has readers asking ‘what next?’

Felícito’s refusal to pay the money prompts his unknown enemy to threaten the lives of his loved ones. Even though he approaches the police he is not only dissatisfied with their efforts, but cannot help being suspicious of them.

Hence, he decides to make his defiance public by writing an open letter to his extortionists in a newspaper. His moral strength turns him into an overnight hero of the common people. Llosa satirises the masses’ hunger for sensational news while highlighting the inadequacies of law-enforcement agencies like the police; and through all this drama his sympathies lie with the individual resistance. Through the ensuing farce of a kidnapping and blackmail, Felícito stands firm in his refusal to pay any protection money.

Parallel to Felícito’s story is that of Don Rigoberto, who has also appeared in some of Llosa’s previous work. In The Discreet Hero, Rigoberto is the manager of a successful insurance company in Lima but his real passion lies in art and reading. His careful plans for an early, leisurely retirement tumble down when he becomes a witness to his boss’s wedding. A parallel story can be the corollary tool of heightening the thrill but it can also be the ruin of a fairly good story; Llosa succeeds in frustrating readers when the other story cuts in.

Felícito and Rigoberto both inhabit a prospering Peru, albeit shadowed under rising crime. Compared to Felícito, Rigoberto’s predicament is more bewildering. On the one hand, he is being threatened by his boss’s twin sons to make a legal statement regarding their father’s deteriorating mental health, which would make the legal status of his new marriage questionable. To make matters worse, Rigoberto’s son believes that he sees and has conversations with a man, Edilberto Torres, who nobody else can see. Like a master storyteller Llosa shapes another narrative strand within Rigoberto’s story: his boss Don Ismael Carrera is a widower who has recently recovered from a heart attack. Weary of his sons’ designs on his money, he decides to marry his young housekeeper who comforted him in his difficult times and leaves all his money in his will to his new bride.

Felícito, Rigoberto and Ismael are all troubled by their sons but are unwilling to compromise on their beliefs. However, each of these protagonists takes a unique shape in the narrative which is rich with a number of memorable characters. Adelaida, a dear friend of Felícito, is one among a handful of meticulously drawn characters which add variety to the main narrative. Called “the holy woman” by Felícito, she is perhaps the most trustful person and an honest friend of his.

Another peculiar character is that of Father O’Donovan, a priest and an old friend of Rigoberto’s. Frustrated with his son, Rigoberto, a devout atheist, goes to O’Donovan for help. The priest assures his friend of his son’s honesty and goes so far as to subtly compare his purity of spirit to that of an angel; Rigoberto, however, finds himself lost for answers. He cannot figure out if Edilberto is “an obsession, a fixed idea” or “a waking nightmare”. Eventually, he settles for the devil: “It means that the devil appears to him, that his name is Edilberto, and that as it turns out, he’s Peruvian”.

The Discreet Hero is more than just a sum of intriguing characters; it seamlessly combines mystery fiction and quality literature. Llosa’s discreet heroes are middle-aged or old men holding on to certain values from the past. Their sons, who represent ambivalent identity, material greed and spiritual uncertainty, stand for the corrupt nature of contem­porary progress.

Although not as ambitious as some of Llosa’s previous works, The Discreet Hero makes for a great read if you’re looking for an engaging, well-written book; it is an entertaining yet sophisticated thriller that’ll keep you engaged until the last page. 

The reviewer is an Ankara-based freelance writer and critic.

The Discreet Hero

(NOVEL)

By Mario Vargas Llosa

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, US

ISBN 978-0374146740

336pp.