48 Colombia – Gabriel Garcia Márquez – Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Score  6.28)

This book was a great disappointment. A few years ago the group read “Love in the Time of Cholera” by the same author. I scored that book at 7.5.This one, I’m afraid, will not achieve that score.

The story is basically that an arranged marriage comes to an end on the first night when the husband Bayardo discovers that his new wife Angela is not a virgin, and sends her back to her family home. She names another man, Santiago, as being responsible. He may or may not be guilty.

The number of characters, taken together with such unfamiliar names, made this a very confusing read, and at the end of the book a whole plethora of people, not named before, suddenly appear.

Angela’s two brothers swear to avenge the family honour by killing Santiago. He in turn goes about his normal day’s business, unaware of this pledge. The number of coincidences is quite unbelievable when most of the town’s population tries to warn Santiago but, for one reason or another.

An autopsy is ordered on Santiago. The book would have been improved by not including the gruesome details of this bloody event.

At the end of the day I could only score this book at 3.5.