Aztec Rage

by Gary Jennings Book 4 in the Aztec series.

First published 2006

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3.9(1,053)

Don Juan de Zavala enters adulthood in a New Spain shaken by crisis in the Spanish monarchy. Skilled with horses and weapons but uncertain of his own ancestry, he is drawn from Mexico City into Indigenous communities, hidden settlements and the coercive world of the Inquisition. Secrets surrounding his family and the colonial elite make neutrality impossible as Napoleon’s invasion of Spain weakens the authority on which the viceroyal government depends.

The narrative links the Peninsular War to the rising led by Miguel Hidalgo in 1810. Juan moves between Spain and Mexico as the Grito de Dolores releases a mass insurgency that its leaders cannot fully control. Political revolution, racial hierarchy and private revenge combine in a story about the moment when subjects of New Spain begin to claim a Mexican identity separate from the empire.