Velvet Was The Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I really enjoyed this book, which is both on Obama's reading list as well as being a New York Times Notable book from 2021. This is an adrenalized, darkly romantic noir novel set during Mexico’s Dirty War. The novel opens with the Corpus Christi Massacre or El Halconazo — “The Hawk Strike” — of June 10, 1971. On that day, thousands of student demonstrators took to the streets in Mexico City for a peaceful march, only to be attacked by los Halcones — the Hawks — a paramilitary group organized and trained by the CIA as part of the U.S. effort to suppress leftists and communists in Central America. Almost 120 demonstrators were killed. Against this back drop, the story unfolds from various different people's perspectives, all the while giving a flavor of an unsettling time in Mexico's recent history. There are unusual alliances and strange bedfellows. I liked it so much I got another book out by the author and started reading it.