What impressed me most about this work was the masterly and elegant prose style. The cosmology of Berger-Kiss is served so well by his wonderful story-telling abilities, the flow of language building to hurricane velocity in a climax worthy of the greatest writers of our time. This should be required reading in all introductory history of ideas courses. My congratulations to the author!

This book by Manuel Payno is book number 3 of the "Sepan Cuantos..." Collection. This book had been very hard to find, even in Mexico City. I had been intrested in this book for my grandfather's childhood house in the town of Tepetclaoxtoc close by to Mexico City was written in these pages, and so was the very same street that he had lived on. I don't know if "The Bandits of Cold Water" had actually existed, but this is in some sense a fictional historical novel such as Frazier's "Cold Mountain". I will not tell much of the plot but it is beautifully complicated and has smaller ones within it. Basically this is a love-revenge-loyality story. It is sort of like "The Soppranos" or "The God Father" as dedication to love and avengement is a motivation to the few characters. The setting is set during the 1800's primarly in Mexico City and smaller towns close to it. This book was written 1888, so the author catches the sense of how "Old Mexico" used to be-- unlike newer books written this time period of older times. There seems to be no English version, but I have planned to do something about it. I have translated 3 chapters as of now. If you are billingual, I suggest to pick a copy of this book for your pleasure and enjoyment.

Enrique