This novel starts off strong -- a desperate group of small-town officials beg a famous crime writer, JD Fierro, to take over as their chief of police. Not because he's qualified to hold such a position, but rather because he's too famous to be assassinated by the government or the judiciales. The crime writer, intrigued by such a weird offer, goes against his wife's wishes and accepts the job. And very soon, JD has to solve the murder of a young American woman who seems to be connected to the town's three richest families.

The premise is great, but unfortunately Taibo breaks from the traditional mystery structure. The narrative voice shifts from third person to first person, and countless chapters are written as letters by JD to his wife. These chapters, along with the ones entitled "Notes for the History of a Radical City," are meta-fictional and chart the progress of JD's novel on the city he is policing.

Unfortunately, the mystery takes a backseat to Taibo's experimentation. "Life Itself" turns into a novel about a novel, and this kills the pace and action of the main plot -- the gringa's death and the political wackiness that consumes this northern Mexican mining town.

In general, I'm not against postmodern mystery novels. "The Crying of Lot 49," for example, by Thomas Pynchon, works so well because of its multiple, tangled narratives. But Pynchon keeps most of the story in the same voice, and thus there is a consistency to the labyrinth he constructs.

But Taibo's shifts are distracting. And worse yet, they make the book boring. The "Radical City Notes" are just tedious. And JD's letters to his wife are unnecessary, at best, since Taibo never takes the time to develop this relationship.

If this book were half as long, devoid of all meta-fictional chapters, it would be a very fun novella and deserving of four or five stars. But as it is right now, it does not deserve a passing grade. Too bad, because some of Taibo's works are so ingenious.