Steve T's Reviews > Zero Saints

Zero Saints by Gabino Iglesias is as noir as any gritty classic by Jim Thompson, James M Cain or Ross MacDonald.

I’m not entirely sure this officially qualifies as horror, but there are plenty of scary scenes, Santeria rituals, and acts of violence to keep you flying through the quick chapters of this intense read.

Any book worth your time can sometimes take some effort. I don’t read Spanish, and there are a lot of passages that are written in Spanish without translation. This proved to be a challenge, but I’m OK with being reminded by the author that I should have paid closer attention to my own neighborhood in Queens when I was 14 and chose to learn Spanish instead of Italian.

And I will tell you that some of these untranslated paragraphs were indecipherable without a translation app, while at other times I surprised myself with how many Spanish words I’ve picked up just from life experience. Oh, did I mention there is some untranslated Russian thrown in for good measure?

While you may get slowed down by some of the Spanish (there’s also plenty mixed in with the English), don’t let this otherwise blazingly fast-paced “barrio noir” crime novel stop you from devouring it. Remember the first time you saw a Quentin Tarantino movie and were kind of awed by his audacity? That’s the best way for me to describe Gabino Iglesias and Zero Saints.