Silver Nitrate is the newest book from Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This is my favourite of her more recent works (Mexican Gothic, Velvet Was the Night and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau). Silver Nitrate pays homage to the golden age of cinema, back when movies were filmed on highly volatile silver nitrate, but it also tackles a part of Nazism that does not get as much attention: the occult.

Silver Nitrate is set in Mexico in 1993. It is about two best friends with ties to the film and television industry: Montserrat, a sound editor, and Tristan, a soap opera actor. Montserrat is very good at her job, but she deals with a lot of misogynistic bullshit at work and having her hours cut in favour of her less talented male colleagues. She also loves horror films. Tristan was a famous actor on the brink of crossing over into film when he and his girlfriend were in a car accident ten years earlier. His girlfriend, another famous soap opera actor, was killed and Tristan was blamed for her death, even though he was not driving the car. His career took a nosedive afterwards and he gets by doing voiceover work.

When Tristan moves into a new apartment, he discovers that one of his neighbours is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, whose last horror film from the 1960s was never completed and was rumoured to have been destroyed. Montserrat and Tristan become friends with Abel, who eventually tells them that his last horror film was written by a Nazi occultist who fled to the Americas at end the of WWII. The Nazi imbued magic into the film in order to complete a spell, but when the film was not finished, everyone involved in the film’s production was cursed.

Abel convinces Montserrat and Tristan to help him complete the final scene of the film so that the curse can be lifted. They appear to be successful and start experiencing good fortune, until Montserrat notices that she is being followed by a dark presence, and Tristan begins to see the ghost of his girlfriend who was killed in the car accident.

Silver Nitrate is an interesting and entertaining blend of two seemingly disparate subjects: cinema and occultism. I find Silver Nitrate to be creepier than Mexican Gothic and it has a more satisfying ending. Montserrat is a fearless, feisty woman like Moreno-Garcia’s other heroines, but she is not annoyingly unpleasant like Maite from Velvet Was the Night. Tristan on the face of it seems like a shallow lothario, but Moreno-Garcia takes the time to develop him into a strong male character like Hun-Kamé from Gods of Jade and Shadow. I highly recommend this novel, even if you have not read any of Moreno-Garcia’s other works.