'Sometimes God is your copilot, but it's the Devil who takes you home.'

My thanks to Headline Wildfire for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Devil Takes You Home’ by Gabino Iglesias. It was originally published in August 2022. My apologies for the late feedback.

This novel is a journey into the heart of darkness. Its protagonist, Mario, is a husband and father. When his daughter is diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer, the medical bills quickly pile up. Then he is fired from his job and their insurance runs out.

In desperation he turns to Brian, a shady acquaintance, who in the past had tried to involve him in dodgy activities. While Mario had been too worried about getting caught, Brian had assured him that he always had ‘gigs’ if he ever changed his mind. Now Mario urgently needs money to keep his family afloat.

So Mario becomes an unlikely hitman though his family disintegrates anyway. Then Brian introduces him to a man named Juanca, who presents them with a temping offer: a score that will involve stealing millions from a Mexican drug cartel. 

Together, they begin a journey through an underworld where unspeakable horrors happen every day. Mario is a man with nothing to lose and the Devil is waiting for him. As a man whose faith has been tested beyond endurance, Mario embarks on a quest to recover his lost soul.

This was a pitch black noir thriller that pulled no punches in its depiction of the violence and brutality that Mario witnesses. It is cited as an example of ‘Border noir’ and I felt that while the border refers to the physical border between the USA and Mexico it can also be a metaphysical border.

This was my first experience of Gabino Iglesias’ writing, though I regularly read crime authors who are confident in incorporating elements of magical realism, supernatural horror, and mysticism into their novels. In addition, Iglesias also addresses real world issues such as racism, bigotry, poverty, the drug trade, and how precarious life can be. There is also a lot of justifiable anger towards America’s health care system.

Throughout the narrative Iglesias utilises linguistic diversity. Some characters only speak English while others pepper their speech with Spanglish and varieties of Spanish. Most of the non-English dialogue is untranslated and there is no use of italics. I was fine with this, as it increased the sense of authenticity.

Overall, I found ‘The Devil Takes You Home’ a raw, powerful novel. Not the most comfortable read given its graphic nature though I felt that it felt a worthwhile experience. I plan to read more of his writing.

It's been a long while since I've read something as good as this that really scares you! What a fantastic read, gripping, disturbing and at times, terrifying! If you want something to take you out of your comfort zone this is the book for you!

A book that isn't sure if it wants to be a crime story, or a horror story, and ends up falling somewhere in between. There's too much of a disconnect between the two halves for this reader to enjoy, though there is definitely potential in the author.

Poverty, racism, religion, politics, and a failing healthcare system—this is America, and its future looks bleak. Gabino Iglesias, literary critic and author, perfectly captures the American zeitgeist in his latest barro noir novel about a desperate man who abandons all faith and hope in favour of confronting fate head-on.

Full review: https://westwordsreviews.wordpress.com/2022/09/12/the-devil-takes-you-home-gabino-iglesias/

I really liked this one. Very dark vibes the whole way through. Strong characters and real stakes. Think Mexico border stories like Sicario mixed with some black magic. Grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go until the grizzly and shocking end.

Had been looking forward to this book for a long time and it didn't disappoint. Zero punches pulled by a very gifted author. Visceral, unsettling, heartbreaking and scary. There's a depth here that other books in this genre (or genres, as this is pretty hard to pigeon hole, and all the better for it) lack. Brilliant. Can't wait to read more by Iglesias.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC and the chance to review.

The Devil Takes You Home is about a Latino man who loses everything and finds himself in a dark existence doing the unthinkable to survive. But he seems oddly okay with his change in fortunes and just rolls with it. I didn't feel very invested in Mario and his circumstances. He felt like a dispassionate narrator and I, as the reader, was just rolling along with him.

The writing is both richly lyrical and frustrating at the same time. I loved the interesting turns of phrase, the Mexican/Spanish wisdom, but found the constant reflections of Mario's previous family life a wee bit wearing. Yes, this novel is harshly violent, with hints of horror, but what I appreciated most was the Mexican religious mysticism that elevated the novel in a fascinating way. Great insight into a culture and its beliefs for someone not familiar.

The plot, after taking a few unexpected turns, played out pretty much as I suspected it would. How could Mario not foresee the obvious conclusion? Regardless, this was an insight into a world unlike my own and I appreciate that.

What an amazing book!
The book is super exciting and would love to read more from the author!

Thankyou netgalley for the ARC

The Devil Takes You Home had me completely hooked from the first page.
Mario works hard to support his wife and daughter but when his daughter becomes sick and he is fired from his job for taking to much time off he is in disparate for work to help pay for a new cancer treatment for his daughter.

But when little Anita passes his whole world falls apart.

He goes to Brian a junkie drug dealer to ask for help and when Brian offers him a hit job Mario takes the deal.
And this is where Gabino Iglesias puts his magical writing skills to thr written word.

This book has just about everything a reader could wish for. Grief, empathy, loss, poverty, religion, violence and gore and of course racism.

Definitely not for the faint hearted but I for one thoroughly enjoyed this book.

I discovered Gabino on twitter and had been planning to read his work for some time, so I jumped for the ARC of The Devil Takes You Home.

This novel is brutal in all possible ways. A clever blending of genres sees three broken men; a gangster, a bereaved father and a junkie, take on a Mexican cartel for money and guns. But there are more than just humans to fear on this journey.

I really enjoyed the horror elements woven into The Devil Takes You Home. Religion, voodoo and monsters feature in an adrenaline fueled ride through grief, racism, poverty and addiction.

The pace slowed down for me occasionally when Juanca spent pages discussing his views and although you can understand the story without pausing to translate, there are frequent paragraphs of dialogue in Spanish.

I would have like a little more of the supernatural and thought the ending was a bit cliché, but an otherwise enjoyable read.

Is it a thriller? Is it horror? Does it matter? Gabino Iglesias refused to be pigeon-holed by genre constraints, that's for sure. He writes beautifully and I highlighted loads of passages for further reflection. 'The Devil Takes You Home' is graphic and violent, amidst the heart-wrenching grief and loss. Iglesias is also right on the money, as regards poverty and racism. The horror/supernatural element wasn't really for me but I did enjoy the book and would read this author's work again.

Omg what a read!!!
A new author for me and I will be definitely be reading more of this authors work. Be prepared to go on a wild ride. This book was definitely not what I was expecting it was so much more!!! It deals with poverty, racism and the injustice of today in modern America and this is only the beginning. Mario has lost his daughter, his faith ,his wife and is in the middle of a downward spiral until he is offered a job that will solve all his problems and the pay off is more than he will ever need. The story kept me reading late into the night. Brutal and blood curdling violence. What is it they say that if something looks too good to be true it probably is. Crime and horror collide in this nail biting tale. A must read!!!
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for giving an honest review.

Vivid, visceral and unrelenting, The Devil Takes You Home is brutal, brilliant and impossible to box in.

The writing is fist pumping good and the characters honest. Gabino Iglesias pulls zero punches, in fact the author gives you the literary equivalent of a broken nose, portraying violence as it actually is in real life- savage and cruel.

Love, loss, grief and guilt fuel the main protagonist, sending him on a dark, scary, intensely emotional journey into a hell of his own making

An absolutely superb novel. Not for the faint hearted.

Okay, let’s front foot things: if you’re a mystery lover who only reads bloodless cosies and can’t handle stark violence laid out on the page, you may struggle with this poetically brutal novel from Texas storyteller Gabino Iglesias. If however you like serial killer thrillers, rural noir, and crime that veers towards horror, you’re in for something brilliant.

The Devil Takes You Home is the harrowing tale of Mario, an office worker and father spiralling downwards following his beloved young daughter’s cancer diagnosis. Strangled by a profiteering US healthcare system, bad decays to worse, and Mario finds himself taking up old insurance company colleague turned junkie Brian’s job offer. Money at the end of a gun; Mario a hitman who goes from desperately reluctant to enjoying the violence he inflicts on bad men. But is he purging his rage at God and circumstance, or stoking it? Then, the offer of a near-suicidal mission with a life-changing payoff: hijack a cartel cash shipment before it crosses back to Mexico.

Iglesias deftly straddles crime and horror in a page-chewing tale of a desperate man on a nightmarish journey. This is a confronting novel: the racism, poverty, and injustice of modern America as much as some nasty events. Unforgettable characters entwined with despair, revenge, extreme religious beliefs, and monsters imagined and real. Excellent.

[This review was written for Good Reading magazine in Australia]

This is an author to know. Just when you think you understand the motives behind the characters and the way their story lines are being presented—bam!—It will hit you with twists you won’t see coming!

This is the first book I have read by this author and I will definitely be looking for ore from them in the future. It is well writen with a dark and compelling storyline and well developed characters. This was such a dark and disturbing read that was almost dazzling because of that, I loved it.

I was a big fan of 'Zero Saints' - the previous book I read by the author. While that was a shorter piece of work at under 200 pages, this is a full length novel and it was, as far as I'm concerned, the best new novel I have read of 2022, and as a horror fan who has been disappointed in most of the highly touted and publicized 'horror' releases in the past few years, the best horror I've read in a long time.
I could talk plot or characters - there's a lot more plot to talk about here than the previous short sharp blast of Zero Saints as Mario, desperate for money to pay for his daughter's medical bills, takes on a role of hitman he never expected to, but really, just go into it knowing as little as you can and enjoy the ride - if enjoy is quite the right word. I've read the most hardcore crime and horror, but the pre=mission 'church' visit, is one of the most disturbing things I've read in a long time. You'll know it when you read it.
Not that this is some sort of splatter gore piece. It's nightmarish and brutal, but there is some beautiful and skillful writing in here. Some of the descriptive language is among the best I've read. It's strong stuff and I can see why the likes of SA Cosby has praised it - there's a touch of his style here, a bit of Cormac McCarthy, Joe Lansdale and James Ellroy, but it's no copy - this is a completely unique style from an author with a lot to say and a hell of a way to say it.
My book of 2022 so far.