If you read every novel written by a prolific writer like Silvia Moreno-Garcia, there is always the possibility that you will not like everything they have written. I certainly have been less impressed with some of Moreno-Garcia’s books than others, but I guess I am still floating off the high of The Bewitching because I am disappointed that The Intrigue, her latest noir novel, is just an okay book.

The Intrigue is set in 1940s Mexico and is about a con artist named Ulises who uses lonely hearts ads to seduce women through letters, convincing them to send him money. Sometimes he seduces these women in person for a big score. When the novel opens, Ulises is broke and hiding out in Mexico City from the sons of his latest attempted con. He needs to get out of the city for awhile, so he decides to travel to Veracruz to seduce his newest correspondent, Perla. Perla is a spinster who runs a boarding house and her family was once the wealthiest and most important family in town. Now living in genteel poverty even though she has a secret hoard of cash, Perla is a proud woman and a stickler for propriety, but she harbours a dark secret. Living with Perla is her niece, Inés, the illegitimate child of Perla’s sister who had an affair with a married man. Perla treats Inés like an indentured servant and shows her no affection. Inés is desperate to get out from under Perla’s thumb, so when she realizes who Ulises really is and that he is after Perla’s money, Inés wants in on his con.

The Intrigue is missing the intriguing aspects of Mexico’s history and culture that I have always appreciated about Moreno-Garcia’s novels. This novel could have been set anywhere with the blandness of the setting and the characters’ lives. It is easy to predict the sequence of events in the story as well as Perla’s dark secret, and there are no surprise twists.

A feature of noir is morally ambiguous characters, but to be able to root for any of them, they must be charming or have some kind of purpose that you can get behind. We are told that Ulises is handsome and charming, but he is not written as a charming character, and I do not care much for him. Ulises is simply a con man who takes advantage of vulnerable women and who is mourning a father who taught him how to take advantage of vulnerable women. He can’t be bothered to learn how to do anything useful for a living. If Ulises was the type of con man who took advantage of horrible people who deserve to be conned, then maybe you could call him an admirable character, but he just wants to coast through life on the money of people who would be worse off than him once he steals it from them.

Now, Perla isn’t exactly a vulnerable woman. She is a horrible woman who you could argue deserves to get what Ulises and Inés cook up for her, but I actually found her to be the most empathetic character in the novel. However, for the reader to be able to get behind Ulises and Inés’s con, Perla must be the most monstrous character of the three. Inés is also an empathetic character whose moral quandary is most interesting, but I think she would have been too smart to fall for someone like Ulises, so the romance between those two does not feel authentic to me.

Despite my rather negative review of this novel, I do not want to put anyone off reading Moreno-Garcia’s novels because I do really like most of them. Untamed Shore is my favourite of her noir novels and Velvet Was the Night is also a good noir story.