The Lord of Opium by Nancy Farmer

imageI first met Matteo Alacran when he was still the clone of El Patron in The House of the Scorpion.  I cheered when he escaped his fate and cried when he learned of the cruelty of El Patron that even reached out from beyond the grave.  When I learned that Nancy Farmer had written a sequel, I wasn’t sure what to think.  Of course, I wanted to know what happened to Matt, but how could a second book live up to the mind-blowing experience of reading the first one?

I needn’t have worried.  The Lord of Opium is every bit as powerful as The House of the Scorpion.  Now that El Patron is dead, Matt is the new drug lord for the country of Opium.   He has grand plans for the future of Opium, but first he must convince his people and the outside world that a fourteen-year-old can lead a country besieged on all sides–and from within.  He’s not sure who he can trust.  His beloved foster mother Celia now treats him differently.  Cienfuegos, head of the Farm Patrol, is deadly and dangerous, but he is the only one left who knows how Opium is run.  Maria’s mother is determined to keep her away from Opium and Matt.  Even his friends from the plankton factory–Chacho, Ton-Ton, and Fidelito–don’t know how to react to this new, powerful Matt.  Dr. Rivas has worked for years to find a way to reverse the eejit operation, but he has his own hidden agenda.

All Matt needs to do is find a way to reverse the eejit operation, find new crops to grow in Opium, negotiate with Esperanza Mendoza to end the drug trade, keep competing drug lords from invading, discover the many secrets of Opium, and hope that biometric security features recognize him as El Patron instead of disintegrating him on contact.

Just as in the first book, Matt holds the story together.  He wants to do the right thing–if he can figure out what the right thing is when there are no easy answers.  Is he any better than El Patron if he must sacrifice a few in order to save many more?  How can he take on all the responsibilities and threats that come with being Lord of Opium when he doesn’t even know the details of its daily operation?  How can he free the eejits without destroying them?

This is another book that leaves me with plenty to think about.

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