The Ancient Greek thriller from the author of
Adios Muchachos
, winner of an Edgar Award.
—Nominated for an Anthony Award and a 2004 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
“Daniel Chavarría has long been recognized as one of Latin America’s finest writers.” —Edgar Award–winning author William Heffernan “Celebrated in Latin America for his noir detective fiction, Uruguayan author Chavarría makes his English-language debut with this fast-paced novel . . . a zesty Cuban paella of a novel that’s impossible to put down.” —
Library Journal
, on
The Eye of the Cybele,
Akashic’s second release by celebrated Uruguayan mystery novelist Daniel Chavarría, is equal parts historical epic, whodunnit-style thriller, highbrow erotica and philosophical discourse. Set in late sixth-century BC—during the reign of Pericles—the novel fictionally recreates the behind-the-scenes scandals and political intrigues that occupied the Athenian home front at the height of the Peloponnesian War. The novel’s central character is Alcibiades, a stutteringly precocious Athenian general whose physical beauty, unparalleled Olympic achievements, and reckless courage on the battlefield earn the fanatical enthusiasm of the polis; the affection and desire of Lysis, a lusty and seductive temple prostitute; the admiration and patronage of Socrates; and the jealousy and suspicion of Nicias, one of the city’s most powerful generals and a leading competitor for the favor of both Pericles and the masses. At the center of it all is the Eye of the Cybele, a sacred jewel whose mysterious disappearance sets in motion a sequence of deceptions, subterfuges and failed schemes that ultimately undermine the self-serving ambitions of both Alcibiades and Nicias. Much of the novel’s real action takes place behind the scenes, however, through the comically megalomanical preoccupations of the Keeper of the Sum, a mad but charismatic beggar-priest who founds—and personally administers the sensual sacraments of—a new Cybeline cult. While the core beliefs and aspirations of the Golden Age are beginning to crumble from within, Chavarría depicts—in the phallically obsessed reveries of the Keeper—the birth pangs of a new world religion. Chavarría blends conventional third-person narrative, formal epistles, and deliriously sensual streams-of-consciousness to create a novel which progresses at a lively pace. Along the way there are savage scenes of torture and war, convoluted tales of political maneuvering, luridly sensual descriptions of cult sexual activity, and spirited philosophical debates. In a stunning denouement, Chavarría masterly employs the Socratic method to demonstrate the Socratic roots of the suspense genre, with the great skeptical philosopher himself unwittingly assuming the role of a Nick Charles–style detective who logically eliminates one hypothesis and suspect after another to identify the novel’s real culprit for an equally uncomprehending audience.