The Devil’s Bag Man is a Brutal, Brilliant Southwestern Supernatural Thriller

In a rundown trailer deep in the Texas desert, Jess Galvan is fighting for his life. He’s sharing a soul with Cucuy, a homicidal Aztec priest with a taste for virgin hearts, a criminal cartel at his beck and call, and a 500-year grudge against a god. Every time he even sleeps for too long, Galvan’s arch-nemesis takes authority over a little more of his body. If he ever wrests full control, Galvan’s soul will be shunted off to the underworld and everyone he loves—everyone he even makes eye contact with—will be in danger of being literally torn limb from limb by his murderous passenger.
There are perks to Galvan and Cucuy’s little arrangement: Galvan can run faster, hit harder, and take more punishment than anyone else. He can heal from catastrophic damage, race across the desert in two days, and even regrow limbs. His powers have even given him a way to keep busy, and keep Cucuy stays at bay: he’s trying his hand at being a vigilante. By cleaning up the small border town of Rosales, Galvan can take out his frustration on gang members and keep Cucuy out of his head at the same time. Cucuy’s friends and associates have their own plans, though. Slow, painful plans. Plans involving breaking Galvan and his family in order to get their leader back in control. Worse still, that god with grudge has taken special notice of his old enemy. All these forces are converging in a small town called Rosales…

Mansbach’s control of pacing is impressive. This story is actually fairly downbeat and methodical as supernatural thrillers go, and Mansbach keeps most of his scenes slow and tight…until there’s an unexpected pop of violence. The slower scenes always feel like they’re building to something great and terrible, and when things finally do blow up in Galvan’s face, the damage is suitably nasty. By the end of the book, the methodical pace gives way to one long, breakneck rush that serves as a suitably bitter cherry on a nihilistic narrative sundae.
In Mansbach’s hands, the Texas-Mexico border sounds like an interesting, utterly frightening place, where ghouls rise up from the desert to eat the unsuspecting; inmates in a Mexican prison are used to transport the beating hearts of supernatural entities; and corrupt cops, racist biker gangs, cults, and other malevolent humans nothing compared to the monsters commanding them. The cruelty even extends to the afterlife, a place known as the “Dominio Gris,” where a bored sorcerer rules over a dark void and toys with the souls of the dead. The darkness of the setting gives the plot additional stakes: when things are allowed to get a little better—when people are allowed to hope—it creates such a contrast that we, too, can imagine brighter days ahead, however distant.
If you’ve been craving a book with a ton of grit and an interesting world, and don’t mind the dark, The Devil’s Bag Man is a brilliant thriller that will set its hooks in the first chapter and refuse to let go until the end.