The Mastermind

(Paperback)

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This voyage into the noir heart of present-day Guatemala is based on the true story of a man who orchestrated his own assassination and left behind a video accusing the Guatemalan president of his murder. By all appearances, Guillermo Rosensweig is the epitome of success. He is a member of the Guatemalan elite, runs a successful law practice, has a wife and kids and a string of gorgeous lovers. Then one day he crosses paths with Maryam, a Lebanese beauty with whom he falls desperately in love...to the point that when he loses her, he sees no other option than to plan his own death.

Reviews

An intriguing thriller with a fantastical ending. This is a good piece of historical fiction.
--Book Haunt

David Unger has taken one of the strangest, most sinister affairs in Guatemalan history and, through the power of his imagination and mastery of his art, made it even stranger, richer, disturbingly more human and universal.
--Francisco Goldman, author of The Interior Circuit

The Mastermind is a merciless analysis of the dark web of a country, perhaps of a whole continent, and, finally, of all forms of organized power. The novel raises fascinating questions regarding the literary tensions between real-life events and their fictionalization, between Guatemala's incredible Rosenberg case and Rosensweig, Unger's imagined alter ego--the way these two characters blur, argue, and battle in the reader's mind make this an engrossing read."
--Andrs Neuman, author of The Things We Don't Do

In The Mastermind, David Unger's compelling antihero reminds us of the effects of privilege and corruption, and how that deadly combo can spill from the public to the private sphere. Unger's Guillermo Rosensweig is on a hallucinatory journey in which everything seems to go right until it goes terribly, terribly wrong. I couldn't put this down.
--Achy Obejas, author of Ruins

Swaggering, visceral, and sharply astute, The Mastermind is a riveting account of one man's high-stakes journey to self-reckoning.
--Cristina Garca, author of King of Cuba

Author Bio

Guatemalan novelist David Unger was awarded his country's Miguel ngel Asturias National Prize in Literature in 2014, despite writing exclusively in English. He is the author of the novels The Price of Escape and Life in the Damn Tropics. His short stories and essays have appeared in Words Without Borders, Guernica, KGBBarLit, and Playboy Mexico. He has translated fourteen books from Spanish into English. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.