The gangster novel, or dark novel, called that way perhaps for the dark environment in which it takes place, gave life to the film noir that filled the screens of my teenage years, starring Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Peter Lorre, Paul Muni and George Raft. They were protagonists of plots in which the detectives search for the truth amidst a suffocating atmosphere of violence and corruption that reflects organized crime and gangsterism in the first decades of the 20th Century in the United States.
This type of plot was originally printed in magazines and cheap publications for the working public. It never appears written in a complex or intellectual manner. On the contrary, its description is usually simple and moving without the crime necessarily the main object, which was instead the discovery of some mystery that questions the honor of the investigators.
The motive of the story is always a human weakness: power, hate, lust, expressed with a very clear language. In this case, the motive is racism and the strength of the powerful to exercise it.
I always wanted to find a plot that fit my cinematographic memories. Since a very young age, I was an actor, director and writer in radio and television in my country of origin. I had the opportunity to stage the best works of Agatha Christie, William Irish and Edgar Allan Poe. However, I always wanted to write a dark novel.
Now retired, at the age of 92, in the loneliness of my old age, this plot (based on a true story) occurred to me. It is the case of Ota Benga (as true as it is shameful) in a story full of exaggerations, mentioning details and events, according to the times within an unreal, tangled, and fragile structure.
I would like to clarify that if something in my novel truly happened, it would be pure coincidence.
With this novel concluded, like the avenger of this plot, I affirm that I can die in peace.
Severino Puente
