In The Hot Country, Christopher Marlowe Cobb (“Kit”), the swashbuckling early 20th century American newspaper war correspondent travels to Mexico in April and May of 1914, during that country’s civil war, the American invasion of Vera Cruz and the controversial presidency of Victoriano Huerta, El Chacal (The Jackal). Covering the war in enemy territory and sweltering heat, Cobb falls in love with Luisa, a young Mexican laundress, who is not as innocent as she seems.

The intrepid war reporter soon witnesses a priest being shot. The bullet rebounds on the cross the holly man wears around his neck and leaves him unharmed. Cobb employs a young pickpocket to help him find out the identity of the sniper and, more importantly, why important German officials are coming into the city in the middle of the night from ammunition ships docked in the port.

An exciting tale of intrigue and espionage, Butler’s powerful crime-fiction debut is a thriller not to be missed.

From Booklist

Starred Review Butler takes his first crack at crime fiction with this stylish historical thriller set in civil war–torn Mexico in 1914. Christopher Marlowe Cobb (call him “Kit”) is a newspaper war correspondent in search of action, so naturally he winds up in Vera Cruz just as the American navy is staging a very peculiar mini-invasion. Kit would like to get to the bottom of that, and he would also like to score an interview with Pancho Villa. Then there’s the matter of the Mexican woman who may be a laundress but may also be something very different—and with whom Kit has very definitely fallen in love. And let’s not forget the German entourage: What are they doing in Vera Cruz? Along the way to answering all those questions, Kit gets more directly involved in the fighting than he’d planned. (And so do we: Butler’s multipage, one-sentence description of a gun battle between Villa’s troops and the Federales is a virtuoso feat of breathless, high-energy descriptive prose.) The plot of this multistranded thriller is at times difficult to follow, but the character studies, sense of place, and mood are utterly gripping. The hard-bitten war correspondent is a staple of the thriller genre, of course, but Butler brings new depth and flair to the familiar figure; only Fowler in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American (1956) or perhaps Russell Cruz-Price, Kent Harrington’s dissolute journalist in Red Jungle (2005), comes close to Kit Marlowe for that irresistible mix of been-there-twice-seen-this-shit-before cynicism and its polar opposite, an unquenchable desire to see if the next card turned just might be something special. Reviewers feel that way, too, sometimes, but the card this book turns is definitely something special. --Bill Ott

Review

'The Hot Country draws on many elements of the traditional adventure yarn, including disguises, fist fights and foot races, double agents and alluring young women who may be honey traps or spies... though in prose that has been written with serious attention... this first report makes you want to read on into the war correspondent’s second edition.'
- Guardian

'The Hot Country combines a fast-moving plot with characters of a complexity that is not always found in such fiction' - Sunday Times

'[Butler] is a fine writer, his prose is distinctive... The Hot Country is a historical thriller of admirable depth and intelligence.' - BBC History Magazine

'The Hot Country is filled with political intrigue, mortal danger and high adventure. Robert Olen Butler's first foray into the genre is a genuine and exhilarating success.' - TLS

'The Hot Country is Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler's first foray into the world of commercial fiction and it is one hell of a debut...tremendously fun to read.'- We Love This Book

'This high-spirited adventure by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler is an antic concoction of genre cliches, literary sendups, personal homages, fanciful history and passages of great writing.'- New York Times Book Review

'It's an exciting story, much of it based on fact, and Butler has a good time with it. His writing is both crisp and thoughtful, his people ring true and he offers an amusing portrait of a golden age in journalism... The Hot Country is a thinking person's thriller, the kind of exotic adventure that, in better days, would have been filmed by Sam Peckinpah.'- Washington Post

'Butler takes an often-overlooked chapter of history and turns it into a whip-smart tale of intrigue and espionage.'- CNN.com

'A high-spirited adventure.'- Charlotte Observer

'Enjoyable novel that should attract devotees of espionage and historical fiction.'- Library Journal

'A fine stylist, Butler renders the time and place in perfect detail.'- Publishers Weekly

'An awfully good read.'- Criminal Intent

'[The Hot Country is] Robert Olen Butler's fast-paced entree into adventure tales. Add a little Indiana Jones and you get the picture: a smart guy also handy with his fists and firearms, burdened with a dedication to finding out the truth.'- Plaza de Armas

'Pancho Villa, fiery senoritas, and Germans up to no good-Robert Olen Butler is having fun in The Hot Country and readers will too. An intelligent entertainment with colorful history.'-Joseph Kanon, New York Times bestselling author of The Good German and Istanbul Passage

'The Hot Country is a spirited and beautifully told tale of adventure and intrigue in the grand old style, rich in both insight and atmosphere. Going off to war with Kit Cobb is as bracing and fun as it used to be in George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman books, or in Perez-Reverte's Captain Alatriste novels. And the best part is that there are more to come. Saddle up.'- Dan Fesperman, Hammett award-winning author of The Double Game

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