The Red Hyena

The story is based on real events connected with the life of Felicitas Sánchez Aguilón, the recipient of the Mexican national award “Turn of the Key.” The press dubbed her “Hyena,” “devil woman,” “cannibal,” and “disembowler,” because she not only performed secret abortions, but also killed dozens of already born children. Her horrific story became the key to a series of murders committed forty years after her death.

The events unfold in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, in 1985, when the owners of two funeral agencies find corpses of two women on their doorsteps. The bodies imitate pregnancy using pillows under their clothes, and each has a perfectly round opening in the forehead—yet not a drop of blood. It brings to mind murders from a local detective novel writer, Ignacio Suárez, who also received photographs of the corpses with the message “Find me,” and died in a car accident. The only lead left is a mysterious manuscript.

The author weaves together two time periods, creating a dark story about the psychology of the killers and their past, and tells how evil is born—and how far it’s possible to run from it.