From the publisher:
"American Visa is beautifully written, atmospheric, and stylish in the manner of Chandler . . . a smart, exotic crime fiction offering."-George Pelecanos, author of The Night Gardener

Armed with fake papers and a handful of gold nuggets, an unemployed schoolteacher with a singular passion for crime fiction and noir cinema sets out from a small town in Bolivia on a desperate quest for an American visa, his best hope for escaping his painful past and reuniting with his grown son in Miami.

Following an unpleasant visit to the US consulate, Mario Alvarez's dream of emigration takes a tragicomic twist on the rough streets of La Paz, Bolivia. He embarks on a series of Kafkaesque adventures, crossing paths with a colorful cast of hustlers, social outcasts, and crooked politicians-and initiates a romance with a straight-shooting prostitute named Blanca. Spurred on by his detective fantasies and his own tribulations, he hatches a plan to rob and, if necessary, kill a wealthy gold dealer, a decision that draws him into a web of high-society corruption but also brings him closer than ever to obtaining his ticket to paradise.

Juan de Recacoechea was born in La Paz, Bolivia, and studied and worked as a journalist in Europe for almost twenty years. After returning to his native country, he founded Bolivia's first state-run television network and dedicated himself to writing novels. Recacoechea currently works for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is the author of seven works of fiction. American Visa, which won Bolivia's National Book Award and was turned into a hit film, is his first novel translated into English.