It took me two weeks to read this book – for a four specific reasons.
1) I was gifted the paperback and the type was so small! My old eyes (even with my progressive lens) could only read the tiny font for an hour at a time. I finally resorted to downloading it to my Kindle. SO much better at a larger font size.
2) There was an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Building!!! I was glued to my TV for days. It is pointless for me to hide my obsession with breaking news (real breaking news that interrupts ABC, NBC and CBS, not the constant breaking news on cable news channels). So novel reading time took a nose dive as I monitored these crazies who thought they should break into and vandalize our national’s symbol of democracy while threatening our leaders and Capitol Police with zip ties, nooses and flagpoles. Enough said.
But I have some better reasons related to the book itself.
3) I don’t speak ANY Spanish. Originally written in Spanish, the translator kept Spanish words sprinkled into the text. As it turns out most are swear words but I didn’t know that.
4) I haven’t been to southern Spain or Morocco or Gibraltar. The nature of the book describes a lot of locations and routes in these three countries and the Mediterrean. Once I resigned myself to consulting a map and a translation tool, I fell into a better reading rhythm.
I did persist in finishing the book because I enjoyed the story. The main character, Teresa Mendoza, evolves from a young, poor, naive Mexican girlfriend to a cultured, powerful, Spanish business owner (that happens to transport illegal drugs) . She is driven by the need to control her own life, image & destiny. While I believe she truly experienced love, after certain events unfold, she decides not to let love control her choices ever again.
Theresa flees Mexico for Spain after her boyfriend, Güero Dávila is killed for double crossing his drug-smuggler boss. In Spain, she falls in love with Santiago Fisterra, who transports/smuggles tobacco & hashish from Morocco into Gibraltar & Spain. But with Santiago, she didn’t want to be the naive girlfriend. Good with numbers, she manages the books and eventually goes out on jobs with him. They become true partners. After Santiago is killed and she spends time in prison, she decides never to rely on men again.
Teresa’s prison cellmate is Patty O’Farrell Meca, the black sheep of a rich Spanish family. Patty introduces Teresa to the world of books – providing Teresa an education she never had growing up. After they are released, Patty bankrolls Teresa’s entry into southern Spain’s drug smuggling market. With Teresa’s contacts from her time with Santiago and Patty’s contacts in the money laundering world, the two become the biggest transportation system of drugs in the Mediterranean. Teresa soon becomes known as the Queen of the South. Eventually, her past catches up with her and she must decide how to confront it.
There are many references to Alexandre Dumas’ novel, The Conte of Monte Cristo, a book Teresa reads in prison and influences her greatly. She refers often to the characters. Since I have never read the book, the references were lost on me.
On Goodreads, I gave The Queen of the South a three-star rating, reflecting my opinion that knowing Spanish and Spain would make this a much more enjoyable book. While I enjoyed the story, I find it hard to justify all the work I put into reading it.
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