Leonardo Padura – The Transparency Of Time

‘The Transparency Of Time’ by Leonardo Padura is the ninth book in a series. I read it not even realising this little matter but I came across no issues anyway.

Mario Conde is a former police officer in Padura and these days he makes a living from books, buying and selling old collections that are worth some money. He does also write but he is never happy with his writing. He does also take on the odd P.I job every now and again.

An old school friend of Conde, Bobby has asked Conde if he can attempt to find a statue of the Virgin De Regla, a black Madonna that Cubans revere. Bobby has recently been initiated into Santería, identifies his Madonna with Yemayá, the primary mother figure in Santería, and claims that she has cured him from near-fatal cancer. Conde accepts his offer of a job and listens to Bobby explain that his con-man lover took everything from his house and this is why the statue is gone. He does also offer an inflated pay rate to Conde. Conde gradually finds himself wondering how true and if he is only telling half the story. We then move back in time, to learn the history of his Madonna.

A character-driven story that I really enjoyed. The fact it is set in Cuba was really different for me and I found it interesting to learn some little things about Cuba from a Cuban view too. I enjoyed the mystery of the lost black Madonna along with the historical portion of the story too. I found it a multi-layered story with all these different parts that moved the story forward and I was interested in the history part. Being a bit of a history geek I really immersed myself in this book and was quite sad when I got to the end.

Thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours and Bitter Lemon Publishing for the copy of this very intriguing and interesting book