Zero Saints hooks from the first line. A man is taken into a car and forced to watch someone get decapitated so he can pass on a message. Some writers save this kind of shock until later on in the book. But no, even when the balance of pages is against you, Iglesias promises that there is a lot more to come.
Fernando comes to America from Mexico to escape people who are chasing him. In a split decision he flees and establishes his new life as an illegal, initially working service jobs till finding his niche working on a door and peddling drugs. He prays too, not just in a general routine sense, the kind that sometimes we all are guilty of when we want things to go our way, but he always prays to the forces that are predicting him. Once he sees a man decapitated he has to pray more, not only for protection, but for power, as he gathers his forces and moves forward, clutching his weapon.
The novel flows like a stream. Iglesias creates a world that we know, and shows as an underside that doesn’t rely on shock horror, but instead good writing and compelling scenes that means we arrive at the end of our story quicker than we’d like. The action is all there, never over-done, every move and killing seems rational, even when beings seem more than natural and the suspense is coming at you more aggressively than waves in a storm.
Iglesias manages the difficult task of keeping the nationality of a character core. Prayers and dialogue are often written in Spanish, with no side by side translation for those who want to know every word. Instead, it brings us into the world of Fernando, a fish out of water. He’s learned to adapt in Austin, Texas, and the reader who is unfamiliar with Spanish has to learn that when a man is scared he will swear in his first tongue.
There’s more than just guns blazing, though. This is a story of redemption. A story of people whom become so accustomed to a world that the idea of shooting someone in the back of the head is more desensitised than working a job for seven bucks an hour. Add to this a Russian hitman who kills anything but is afraid of these hitmen, a psychic that helps set a plan in motion and a canine that mystically seems human level aware – oh, and a guy with a gold desert eagle – and its balls to the wall good time. Zero Saints is a wonderfully written and entertaining journey. Its title may be true by the time you finish reading it, but you’ll look above the pages and hope that there’s someone looking out for you if the world Iglesias created is even remotely true.
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