Two hard facts: Traven published his books in German (his best-known is probably The Treasure of the Sierra Madre), and he lived, for a while at least, in Mexico. Still another insisted Traven was the secret identity of Ambrose Bierce, who, (not) coincidentally, disappeared in Mexico. Another identified him as the illegitimate son of Kaiser Wilhelm II. One theory held that he was the president of Mexico. The facts about Traven are few and wildly disputed. Traven, and thus was born a mystery that has puzzled readers ever since. In 1925 a socialist newspaper carried a short story under the name B. The Part About the Authorsīefore we examine the clues, we should untangle the myths behind two authors with similar backgrounds, each with a desperate need to protect his anonymity. Call it a hunch, but I’m convinced that the story of this forgotten writer holds the key to solving the crimes in 2666. Even more intriguing is the possibility that the novel’s secrets and the enigmatic Traven are somehow connected. “In one of his many notes for 2666,” according to Spanish critic Ignacio Echevarría, “Bolaño indicates the existence of a ‘hidden center,’ concealed beneath what might be considered the novel’s ‘physical center.’ There is reason to think that this physical center is the city of Santa Teresa.” The question of the “hidden center” only adds to the intrigue. Having given it a third go-round, I now think there are secrets buried in these pages-hidden facts and clues waiting to be uncovered. Throw in the largest consumer market in the world, and you have a system that uses Big Money as a cover for murder and savagery. Add to that thousands of migrants and a booming industrial sector. Behind the curtain lurk the drug cartels and the drug war. One thing is clear: a breakdown in law and order fuels the killings. Most of the real cases he used as sources, a string of rapes and murders in the late 90s, remain unsolved. Bolaño keeps the murder mystery intact, and with good reason. It has everything you want in a crime novel-hardboiled detectives, a seedy underworld, rampant corruption-minus the big reveal. But for all the heavy lifting, it still reads like a page-turner. The size and scope of it force you to think globally. The second time around, I think I understood why 2666 is a Big Book That Matters. As the web of evidence spreads, the search for the serial killer gets tangled in the search for a reclusive novelist whose bio bears a curious resemblance to the author B. Everything else-and there’s a lot-unspools backward and forward in time, leaving a trail of cryptic clues across two continents. At the center is a series of unsolved murders around Santa Teresa, a mythic city on the Mexican border, much like Ciudad Juárez. Roberto Bolaño’s five-part beast of a novel calls for some amateur detective work. Even as I was reading 2666 the first time, I knew I would need to read it again.

Bolano 2666