On the case.

• Author: Martin, Jorge Hernandez
• Position: Mexican mystery writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II

But Belascoaran Shayne and the Raven are, after all, fictional characters, the creations of celebrated Mexican mystery writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II. One of the most popular proponents of the so-called new Mexican detective novel, Taibo weaves together modem mysteries, tales of the city, that pit his humble, lonely detective against the forces of crime and corruption.

Taibo's achievement has been to ground certain traits of detective fiction on a particular national reality. Even broader than that, however, says a New York Times review, "the real enchantment of Mr. Taibo's storytelling lies in the wild and melancholy tangle of life he sees everywhere."

The son of a celebrated Spanish newspaper editor and author, young Taibo and his family moved to Mexico in 1958, when he was nine. A member of the generation of 1968, he remained true to his democratic and populist leanings, becoming a historian specializing in Mexico's socialist and labor movements, as well as a journalist. He has taught at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Azcapotzalco and held visiting professorships in Cuba, Spain, and the United States. The author of works of history, among them El socialismo libertario mexicano [Mexican Libertarian Socialism], Taibo has also published many novels and short story collections that have been translated worldwide. But it is in the field of detective fiction that he has left an indelible mark.

Taibo and his detective Belascoaran share in some ways a personal history. "Hector is a kind of recipient of things I live with," says the author. "He reads the books I read. He was born on the day I was born, because that's the only way I can remember when he was born. He smokes the same cigarettes I do."

They both also like the music of the Platters, the American singing group of the 1950s, as well as working at night. "In my case, I have to work at night," says Taibo. "The phone doesn't ring, my daughter doesn't have questions for me.... So I can put together some quiet hours." Regarding his detective's working habits he says, "There's a kind of manic thinking in Belascoaran. Characters are like that. They do strange things. They can do the right things for the wrong reasons. When you work so many years with a character - nine novels with Belascoaran - he has a strong independence. So now when I write a novel with him I have to be very careful to let him do what he wants to do."

The two men also share a sense of displacement and reintegration in a new nation. The father of Belascoaran Shayne was a socialist who had joined the Republican cause in Spain in 1934, fighting after the amnesty and the fascist uprising as a captain of a socialist and anarchist militia. In Valencia, he met his wife, who was singing at an International Brigade function. After World War II, and having collaborated with the maquisard French Resistance, he opted for exile on the friendly shores of Mexico.

Young Belascoaran Shayne earned an electromechanical engineering degree at the National University shortly after the student revolt of 1968. He then married and worked as a supervisor with General Electric until 1976 when, after watching a screening of The Case of Justin Playfair, he decided to leave middle-class comfort behind and become a professional and "independent" investigator, knowing that the choice made him unique in Mexico. As Taibo explains in his novel Cosa facil [An Easy Thing] (1977), "Hector had become a...