Venezuela: History of a crime against a people | Babelia

Obsessed with time, the British writer David Peace assures that this poses a paradox in the criminal fiction of historical cut. The more we let it happen, the more complicated the resolution of the crime at hand becomes. However, distance gives perspective and helps us to the literary approach of conflicts. Mosisés Naím (Tripoli, 1952) has not needed to let the facts go away and forget to make an accurate portrait of the crime of a regime against a whole people. And it has done so with the conflict at its highest point - it is inevitable to think that the mud that drowns Venezuela is the result of the infamous powders of the process initiated by Hugo Chávez- and through a spy novel.

Two spies in Caracas (Ediciones B) begins with the portrait of two disoriented agents before what happens in the Venezuela of Carlos Andrés Pérez, a country that nobody cared about until a military paratrooper of humble origin gives a failed coup d'état that does not It prevents you from becoming a celebrity between your people and abroad. Harnessed by the momentum, and after his imprisonment, Hugo Chávez comes to power and we all know what happens next, but the way in which Naim tells us makes us forget that this was real and puts us squarely in a surreal reality . To the extent that the story is plausible, it does not matter if such a barbarity occurred or not, although we suspect that everything went something like this.

The novel wins when the focus is opened to other realities no less criminal and these are linked to the main plot. The prison history of the Pran, almighty lord of Venezuela in the shadow, completes the perspective of a country subjected to all kinds of theft. Fueled by misery and despair, violence was inserted into every humble stratum of society almost in the same proportion in which corruption and greed was installed among the new rich of the regime and that is also very well reflected.

Only one but: after an end in which the criminal world and that of espionage are mixed before the apparent collapse of the political, the amateur will be left wanting a deeper development of this universe of betrayals and violence. Because this is a spy novel and the story wins when agent Mauricio and his Cuban acolytes of the G2 or Eva and their CIA chiefs take action, the pace accelerates, loyalties are turned around, spies feel lost and the reader perceives their confusion. Each one has the task of ending the other and influencing the reality of the country but nothing is going to go through the pre-established lane. As usually happens in the world of espionage, everyone believes that there are conspiracies perfectly concocted where so many times there is only opportunity, ruthless interests and luck.

Two spies in Caracas, Moisés Naím, Editions B. 2019 382 pages. 19.90 euros