In 'Hurricane Season,' Words Swirl Wild And Dark

Fernanda Melchor's Hurricane Season is so strange, wild, and foul-mouthed that I almost missed the sharp critiques embedded in the story. A mix of drugs, sex, mythology, small-town desperation, poverty, and superstition, this novel spreads like a fungus from the dark center of the literary space where crime fiction and horror meet.

There used to be a witch in a small town in Mexico, but someone killed her. A group of kids discovered her body near the irrigation canals, her