Review of The Definition of Death

The Definition of Death by Eric Wolf

(click the title for the Amazon.com page. Click here for Amazon.co.uk) 

If you're looking for detective fiction where the hero expertly separates the clues from the red herrings while twirling his iron, and always gets his man, this isn't it. Too much real life. Why, Zack even has a fear of actually using his gun! But it's the "real life" that makes this book a winner. 

While the town of Aguas Calientes is fictional, the culture and the social landscape are very real - heavily influenced by Spanish, Mexican and Pueblo culture. It is home to many, has a lot to love about it, but it's dying due to the drug trade, greed and corruption. Eric Wolf writes as one who lives in that part of rural New Mexico, as well as having a background in nursing. 

When we're not following Zack through the sleazy parts of town doing police investigation, or in the double wide mobile home that he shares with his wife, Eric shows us the hospital where Zack's wife, Liz works as a nurse with some of the other characters like Joe, a male nurse, and a doctor of questionable character, Dr Surabian. Quite a lot of the plot unfolds in that hospital, and Eric's nursing experience lends its authenticity. 

Also in the hospital is the comatose Gilbert Garza, maybe suicide victim, maybe murder victim - or not - depending on what's the Definition of Death. Dr Surabian, for reasons of his own, has chosen to keep him going on a ventilator, though he's brain dead. 

Gilbert Garza, who lived next door to the doctor, was a drug dealer, an addict, and a general troublemaker. Any of a number of people could have had a motive to murder him - if he was indeed murdered - and not many are sorry to see him go. But he was found unconscious after an unsuccessful attempt to hang himself, and is in the ICU, brain dead, but being kept alive for whatever reason. Zack and the detective begin by searching his adobe hovel for links to the drug trade, but the case develops into much more. 

In fact, the dead-but-not-dead man in the ICU is the lynchpin to a lot of the bad things happening to that town. There's a lot to love about rural New Mexico, as well as a lot to despair of. Eric Wolf skilfully brings it to the surface.