Pantaleón y las visitadoras

Edit: 29/12/16 - Best Fiction read of 2016.

Captain (Quartermaster) Pantaleon Pantoja is a career military man in the Peruvian Army, like his father and his grandfather. He is a model officer, known for his efficiently, logistics, planning and honesty. An officer ‘without vices', is how the Intelligence Service have reported him to his superiors. His superiors about to give him a special assignment - a secret one. One in which he will have to remain in disguise, out of uniform, as a civilian.

Deep in the Peruvian Amazon, the men are lacking release. The few women near the military camps are wives of the senior officers, or the wives and mothers of the local people. “Every skirt is spoken for in the Amazon settlements.” The soldiers are causing a lot of trouble - attacks and rapes. “Would you believe that a Corporal in Horcones was taken by surprise while carrying on like a newly wed with a monkey?”

Captain Pantoja is to set up a small and discrete brigade of women to service the lonely troops. Along with Captain Pantoja, his wife, and his mother accompany him to the Amazon. Due to the secret nature of his mission, he may not disclose the details of his work.

The first stage, for the SSGFRI (Special Service for Garrisons, Frontier and Related Installations) is research. Research is undertaken by sending a questionnaire to the commanding officer of each garrison, requesting the following information (this is the shortened version):
1. How many unmarried men are under your command? (Exclude married, but also co-habiting men, or men in relationships).
2. Subtract from this number, men incapacitated.
3. Proceed with cunning to now determine the number of marital services each subject will require monthly to satisfy the requirements of his virility. (Maximum 30, minimum 4).
4. Again with discretion, establish how much time the subject calculates the marital service will last in his case. (Maximum 2 hours, minimum 10 minutes.

With this raw data, logistics can be arranged around visitations, and the number of ‘specialists' who must be engaged. But this is merely the start of the research...

Not without opposition from within the army (especially the Army Chaplains), Captain Pantoja find himself battling religious zealots, the army itself, the navy, the civilians who are either disgusted, or disgusted that they are missing out, and at times the female ‘specialists' themselves.

I thought this book was great. Written really well, and translated very well (I assume). It uses a number of methods in its writing, from ‘normal' narrative, military reports, military and civilian correspondence, radio broadcasts, and conversation. Conversation is a key one, because the author has written multiple simultaneous conversations together. Thoroughly confusing until the reader adjusts to the various characters, but ultimately an interesting device. It does mean attention is required to keep track sometimes, and I found myself re-reading the occasional paragraph or two if I lost the train of it all.

Very funny, and incredibly accessible, this book is more than just an absurd story setting out an unlikely situation. The characters are very real, the emotion is real. A strait-laced military man who sets up a brigade of prostitutes, but who gives them respect and the same dignity he would any other branch of the army. He takes very seriously his orders, and the organisation and running of the SSGFRI is second to none. The precision of his report writing is excellent. But of course, it must all come unravelled at the end.

Five stars. Wish I could remember where I saw this recommended!