One the central mysteries of ‘The Prisoner of Zone 22’ is the location of a secret list. Who has it, what are their intentions, how can it be revealed? The list contains the names of victims: everyone General Altrio has ordered killed over decades, as well as the murderer attached to each crime. It is a chain of complicity tied to the will of one man. In the early scenes of the book, Captain Javier Ixtlan finds a handbag left in his office with a book inside, returns it unopened, and later realizes his mistake. The handbag contained a gift of knowledge. The captain’s integrity prevents him from exploiting it, even knowing what it is. The consequences are horrific.
‘The Prisoner of Zone 22’ is about a good man challenging an implacable elite. It is a struggle that never seems to end. In our time we have The Epstein Files, a list of perpetrators destroying women’s lives with impunity. Will it ever truly come to light? Justice in the world is a question of power and who wields it. In Chapter Eighteen of ‘Prisoner’ Ixtlan’s mentor Herrera, in a flashback, glimpses The List for the first time, even as he is forced to be bound and written into its pages. The List appears and re-appears in the story, with effects on the trajectory of souls.
“Prisoner’ takes place in what many consider an unimportant country, and it is a work of fiction. But every human has the same value and every life the same weight. In ‘The Prisoner of Zone 22’ Captain Javier Ixtlan, an unimportant man and one of the dispossessed, rises to confront the dark forces of history.
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