Faber & Faber

Dead Man in Paradise: J. B. MacKinnon

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Synopsis:

The Dominican Republic is a tropical nirvana visited each year by millions of tourists. It is also a country with one of the darkest histories in the whole of Latin America.

A small part of that darkness is unforgettably explored in J. B. MacKinnon’s book. The author’s uncle, a Catholic missionary priest from Canada, was shot dead one night in June 1965. The bodies of two policemen, who had apparently murdered him, were found yards from his body. Not long before, the US had invaded the Dominican Republic in order to prevent a mildly reformist government from coming to power; and a couple of years before that, the long, bizarre reign of the dictator Rafael Trujillo had come to an end in a bloody tangle of intrigue and violence. The mystery of the priest’s death was never solved.

Forty years later, his nephew returned to the island to investigate the murders. His courageous research has allowed him to write a masterly combination of real life thriller, travelogue and memoir. Dead Man in Paradise evokes the fevered atmosphere of a beautiful country that does not encourage too much examination of its past. MacKinnon meets former generals, politicians and revolutionaries, and ageing priests and villagers who remember all too well what it was like to live in mortal fear if they dared to challenge the landowners and the police. In the tradition of Philip Gourevitch and Adam Hochschild, this is a great piece of storytelling about politics and crime.

Tags:

Categorised as:

Non-fiction

Sub-categories:

Biography & Memoir

Places:

Dominican Republic

People & Characters:

Rafael Trujillo

Genres & Themes:

Disappearance; Murder; Travelogue; Violence