Review Of The Book White Jaguar By Preben Ormen

White Jaguar is a murder mystery by Preben Ormen that takes place in Mexico. A man is found dead and floating in the mangroves of Nothern Yucatan. The police are then called in to investigate the murder; and it is here that we are introduced to Inspector Marco Kante Nayal, who is assigned to lead the investigation. Marco finds himself in an intrinsic, widening plot that produces more murders; some of which extend further than Mexico's borders. An attempt at his life is made as well. He, thus, has to follow the clues and forensic evidence to try and catch up with the murderer (murderers?) before he (they) catches up with him.

Preben Ormen does a good job, especially at introducing the characters and the story. I truly enjoyed the introduction and, I believe, it was the most pivotal element of the story. We were introduced, slowly, to Marco, Chuy and some of the other detectives, including Ali, and forensic experts. This was done very well and helped set the mood of the story, and also created enough suspense that made me want to read the entire book to completion.

That said, you have to commend the author for the complex and intricate story line that he managed to weave into White Jaguar. There were a lot of twists and unexpected turns that it was almost imossible for me to put the book down. At every point of the story, there was always another thing happening that I could not see, and that was important to the solving of the mystery. This created a lot of suspense and made me second guess a lot of characters and their actions, which is what great novels aim to make you do. However, the fact that the story was set in Mexico created a bit of a disadvantage. The author had to use a lot of Spanish words and phrases, some of which were never translated. This slowed down my reading as I was left wondering what certain words and phrases meant. This included such words as: basurero, tope, ayuntamiento, progresso and Cocina, to name just a few. The sprinkling of these words and phrases all over the text should have been retained, but running translations should have been offered by the author in a bid to assist all audiences understand their meanings.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would gladly pick up a different book by the same author. That said, I highly recommend it to mystery and detective thrillers fans. They will love this book. It is important to note that I found very few grammatical errors while reading it. As such, I gladly rate it 3 out of 4 stars.