The Bad and the Evil: Justice in the Novels of Pago Ignacio Taibo II

This chapter discusses how the work of Taibo is capable of extremely creative approaches to the forms of criminality specific to neoliberal globalization, despite the fact that his work contains many features that are quite traditional. Taibo’s main protagonist, Hector Belascoarán Shayne, is, in many ways, a prototypical private eye; his novels are usually set entirely in Mexico City, and his villains are usually individuals who may, or may not, be held accountable for their actions. Nevertheless, as Schmid explains, Taibo consistently identifies the (Mexican) state as a criminal actor and his individual criminals are always complexly overdetermined synecdoches of state criminality who either work in concert with members of the police, army, and government, or are actual members of those organizations. The crimes investigated in Taibo’s novels frequently extend far beyond the confines of both Mexico City and Mexico itself in that the criminal activities Taibo focuses on are often transnational in scope, such as drug smuggling, gun running, and the subversion of democratic governments in other countries. Despite the traditional nature of his setting, protagonist, and antagonists, Taibo is ultimately concerned with what he regards as the most serious form of contemporary crime: global neoliberalism.