"Understanding Mexico is an impossible task. But unraveling its vices and virtues is a novelist's task. Élmer Mendoza gives his beloved Zurdo Mendieta a vacation and gifts us an incomparable and brilliant portrait of a country very similar to our own. And we must celebrate this."
— Benito Taibo

"A masterfully and sensitively written noir novel about the various forms of violence that women in Mexico experience, from the bedroom to the main stage, but also about the power of friendship, which can redeem us in these dark times."
— Iris García Cuevas

"If twenty five years ago Élmer Mendoza renewed the language of the detective novel, he now repeats the accomplishment with two unlikely protagonists: a candidate to the Federal Congress with everything against her and her elderly bodyguard. The result? An explosive novel."
— Bernardo Fernández, "Bef"

★ The master of Mexican noir returns with a powerful new novel
Élmer Mendoza, one of the founders of Latin American "narco-literature," delivers a gripping story that weaves together political ambition, gender-based violence, and organised crime. At its heart are two unlikely partners: a female congressional candidate and her retired museum guard bodyguard. Through their uneasy alliance, Mendoza lays bare the brutal truth about power and corruption in contemporary Mexico.
★ A celebrated author with an impressive track record
Mendoza is widely regarded as the godfather of Mexican detective fiction. His accolades include the Premio Tusquets Editores de Novela, the Dashiell Hammett Prize shortlist, and the 2022 Black and Criminal Award from Tenerife Noir. In 2025, he received the Silver Book award in Guadalajara for his lifetime contribution to literature.
★ More than a thriller – a mirror held up to society
This is not just a crime novel or a political thriller. It tackles some of Mexico's most urgent real-world issues head-on: systematic violence against women, political opportunism, the deep entanglement between politics and organised crime, and rampant impunity. The election campaign storyline connects private domestic violence with public persecution of women, while also exploring friendship, solidarity, and redemption in the face of adversity. It delivers the pace and tension of a great thriller, but also offers a sharp, almost sociological insight into a country in crisis. Literature that grips you and makes you think.

Carmen Larrañaga seems to have the world against her. In the face of the plague of violence against women, she has decided to run for federal deputy for her city. However, the leaders of her party—the Democratic Party of the Good People—deny her their support, as they will instead back the opportunist Vega Fernández, whose alliances extend like tentacles into organized crime. But this will not be her biggest obstacle. In her first campaign event as an independent candidate, Carmen is shot twice by a sniper, leaving her seriously wounded.

The young candidate is not intimidated; her message has resonated quickly and deeply, and she is supported by a group of tenacious friends. But how can she campaign knowing that the enemy is lurking, an enemy that could be in the ranks of her powerful former party or in an equally powerful criminal group? Carmen needs protection and she will unexpectedly find it in Néstor del Valle, a retired museum guard. Will it be enough?

Élmer Mendoza cements his place as a master of noir novels with this captivating story, which masterfully blends a political thriller with a social portrait. A work that reflects a reality so stark that it shakes and pains us all. La sirena y el jubilado immerses us in the intense daily fight for justice and survival of women in a country where power is never shared and corruption and impunity run rampant.

Élmer Mendoza
Élmer Mendoza (Culiacán, Sinaloa, 1949) is a Literature Professor at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, corresponding member of the Mexican Academy of Language, and part of the council of El Colegio de Sinaloa. He belongs to the National Creators System. He is a passionate teacher and a committed promoter of reading. From 1978 to 1995 he published seven volumes of short stories and two of chronicles.
In 1999, he published his first novel, Un asesino solitario (Tusquets Editores, 1999), which immediately placed him as "the first narrator who rightly gathers the effect of the drug trafficking culture in our country", according to the Mexican critic Federico Campbell. With El amante de Janis Joplin (Tusquets Editores, 2001) he won the XVII National Prize for Literature José Fuentes Mares, and with Efecto Tegula (Tusquets Editores, 2004) he was a finalist in the 2005 Dashiell Hammett Prize.
He continued writing novels such as Cobraselo caro (Tusquets Editores, 2005), Balas de plata (Tusquets Editores, 2008) for which he unanimously won the third Premio Tusquets Editores de Novela, which established him as a front-line writer in the Hispanic novel scene. After La prueba del ácido (Tusquets Editores, 2010), Nombre de Perro (Tusquets Editores, 2012), and Besar al detective (Literatura Random House, 2015), he continued with the series of detective Edgar "El Zurdo" Mendieta with Lesionato en el parque Sinaloa (Literatura Random House, 2017). The most recent installment of the Zurdo Mendieta saga is Ella entró por la ventana del baño (2021). His new standalone novel La sirena y el jubilado was published in January 2026 by Alfaguara Mexico.
He has also published No todos los besos son iguales, a young adult title, in 2019 with Alfaguara. In 2021 he received an honoris causa doctorate from the Autonomous University of Sinaloa. In 2022, Tenerife Noir awarded him with the 2020 Black and Criminal Award given his indisputable trajectory as a writer of thrillers. In 2025, he received the Silver Book from the Feria del Libro Usado y Antiguo de Guadalajara for his important contribution to literature.