Female characters, padrotes and the prostitution of minors in the book Amorosos fantasmas by Paco Ignacio Taibo II

Abstract

Amorosos fantasmas is a novel written by Paco Ignacio Taibo II that belongs to the crime fiction genre and was published in 1989. The sixth installment of his most representative detective saga, the one starring the investigator Héctor Belascoarán Shayne, narrates the research about the murder of a young minor, named Virginia, after trying to escape from a criminal network, located in Mexico City and dedicated to the prostitution of minors, who, with the mediation of a pimp, tried to capture her. This work demonstrates that, as in all the Mexican author's detective narrative, in which the literary formula is always oriented towards political and social denunciation, the novel exudes almost every page disenchantment and frustration at the social injustice and exploitation of more disadvantaged citizens and exposed to the excesses of the corrupt PRI system. In this case, the corrosive denunciation of Taibo II focuses on topics such as violence against women and female sexual exploitation in the urban environment through, first of all, the most relevant female characters in the novel: the victims Virginia and Laura. And, secondly, the analysis of a social archetype deeply rooted in Mexico: that of the pimp, embodied by the character of Manuel. Dedicated to the recruitment of sex servants, in many cases minors, and to the intermediation between them and the client, the novel uncovers the gears of this lucrative system of abuse and domination. Furthermore, in doing so, he is right to portray it as a network in which, although the pimp plays an axial role, there is a collective structure similar to that of a criminal organization that protects the pimp and benefits from his actions.