That’s the case with this clever little horror story from longtime pop-culture journalist Hendrix ( Satan Loves You, 2012, etc.). You have to give it up for the wave of paranormal novels that have plagued the last decade in literature at least they’ve made writers up their games when it comes to finding new settings in which to plot their scary moments. If the Aztecs are enraged, it’s because one of them read this improbable mess.Ī hardy band of big-box retail employees must dig down for their personal courage when ghosts begin stalking them through home furnishings. You can guess what Don Juan learns about why he’s thus complected, but no matter he’s already torn off across the sea to sign up for action in the Napoleonic Wars, but not before having a minor epiphany or two: “Immersion in the ancient indio culture was slowly transforming me.” Creaky plot points and sneering villains notwithstanding, though, this franchised novel (“Gary Jennings’ Aztec Rage”) is soft porn wrapped in swashbuckling garb, and Zavala is frequently seen unbuckling his swash and piercing the waiting maids and maidens of New and Old Spain with various body parts, all in prose guaranteed to thrill the 13-year-old boy who stumbles upon this book at a garage sale.

Narrowly avoiding the priesthood by virtue of an unfortunate incident-“I horsewhipped a fellow seminarian who branded me a sodomite after I described my lurid deflowering of a servant girl”-the resonantly named Don Juan becomes a champion of sword-and-dagger action, leading a revolt against the oppressive gachupines on behalf of the noble indios and criollo rebels who have decided that Don Juan is a pretty good guy, even though he’s foppish and educated and all that, because he’s a tad on the dark side and was called El Azteca Chico, the Little Aztec, as a lad, and because he's good in a fight. Don Juan de Zavala, though a Spaniard in Mexico, finds that the other Spaniards in Mexico just plain don’t like him. There’s a certain misguided bravado to opening a historical novel with the hoary equivalent of a movie voiceover, compounded by the fact that the voiceover is voiced by a wannabe Zorro-or maybe the Cisco Kid.

about the men I have killed, the women I have loved, the fortunes I have made. Answer “no” immediately if someone asks, “Would you like to know.

Aztec jennings