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The Secret of Derek Guerrero
IS THIS COINCIDENCE…
Derek Guerrero wants to write romance, a far cry from his action-packed, dramatic crime series. To accomplish his goal, he collaborates with young and spunky best-selling author Kim Velasquez. Despite their differences, Derek and Kim find a common bond: a love for anime and a yearning to understand what romance truly is.
…OR IS THIS FATE?
When a series of anime-themed murders strikes in the metropolis, Derek’s resolve is put to the test, for every clue is leading to a painful secret from his past. Complicating matters is a jealous lover who would stop at nothing to possess Kim, even at the cost of her career.
To stop the murders and protect Kim’s slowly-breaking heart, Derek will have to confront his past and unmask his unknown enemies, all while learning to acknowledge his growing feelings for Kim…who just might have something to do with his secret.
Derek Guerrero wants to write romance, a far cry from his action-packed, dramatic crime series. To accomplish his goal, he collaborates with young and spunky best-selling author Kim Velasquez. Despite their differences, Derek and Kim find a common bond: a love for anime and a yearning to understand what romance truly is.
…OR IS THIS FATE?
When a series of anime-themed murders strikes in the metropolis, Derek’s resolve is put to the test, for every clue is leading to a painful secret from his past. Complicating matters is a jealous lover who would stop at nothing to possess Kim, even at the cost of her career.
To stop the murders and protect Kim’s slowly-breaking heart, Derek will have to confront his past and unmask his unknown enemies, all while learning to acknowledge his growing feelings for Kim…who just might have something to do with his secret.
Kindle Edition
Published September 2, 2021
11 people want to read
About the author
Mark Manalang
6 books11 followersMark Manalang takes pride in his career as a journalist, working for various print and broadcast companies since he graduated from the University of the Philippines Baguio. He is currently a news writer for a government news website. Outside the journalism field, Mark takes up food blogging, crime fiction and poetry, and indulging in anime in his spare time. His inspirations for writing are Anthony Bourdain and Snoopy.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 14, 2024
From here
As I've grown older, I've learned to not take awards at face value. As much as they're a good guideline, at the end of the day they're just validating the taste of a certain group of people and the taste of that group of people may not be your taste. Which is a longwinded way of saying that as much as I was drawn by the National Book Award sticker on the cover, I tried to get into this book with as few expectations as possible.
As someone who enjoys anime, I liked the references that I recognized and was intrigued by the ones that I've never heard of. The ones I've never heard of were especially intriguing especially when they were connected to the murders featured in the book.
Another thing that I liked, which I admit is something that I've grown to like as I've gotten older, is recognizing some of the landmarks mentioned in the book. I've spent so much of my childhood (childhood?) reading books from Western authors with locations I can never fully visualize in my head and now that I've been reading more and more local work it's refreshing to see my world reflected back to me.
Since this is partly crime fiction, it did give me a little satisfaction that I'd already figured out who the killer was more or less 50 pages in because it made me feel like I had been picking up on the clues sprinkled all over the book. Although I can also understand people finding that as a negative because you sort of want your crime fiction to keep you guessing until the reveal. Your mileage may vary!
But when we dig deeper into the book, we really get to see the cracks that the National Book Award sticker on the cover fails to hide. The ease with which one can figure out who did the murders is one thing, but liking or disliking that could be a matter of taste. What's a little harder to ignore is how some of the situations in the crime fiction parts of the story just seem...improbable.
Derek Guerrero, for instance, leaned a little too heavily into Gary Stu territory. While I didn't cover the police beat when I worked for a newspaper, I had friends who did and quite frankly there's literally two other people I know who came from police beat that most Filipinos know by name, and they got that fame from radio and television work and not from their time in the newspaper. The amount of people that knew of Derek Guerrero and his "reputation" ranged from security guards to actual officers of the law and it was just a little too much for me. If you're that known for your newspaper writing and you haven't parlayed your fame into at least a radio gig then I just can't buy into the whole fantasy. And I'm all about buying into the fantasy! I'm a fan of drag queens for crying out loud!
David's Gary Stu-ness doesn't stop with the crime fighting though, it extends into his author life as well. The book starts out by saying that he's a moderately successful crime fiction author, but throughout the book everybody just seems to know him and his work. Even readers from an entirely different genre like romance know about his crime fiction work, and as anybody who's spent any amount of time in romancelandia knows, that means you're pretty freaking famous if even pretty faithful audiences like romance readers know about your work. So what's the truth?
And since we're talking about romance readers, I don't think the romance parts of the novel aren't going to go over very well either. Derek says some pretty unflattering things about the genre, mostly outdated things and generalizations that aren't really even about the genre itself but about authors who publish on sites like Wattpad. I don't think he really redeems himself by the end of the novel either. In fact, he probably ends up looking even worse and I can't even say why because I don't know how to hide spoilers here.
Derek isn't really written well as a romantic lead either, especially if you're an avid romance reader. He's very Nice GuyTM throughout the book and rather than seem gentlemanly, he comes off as being sanctimonious. It doesn't help that his sanctimoniousness is supported by the book. The novel's attitude towards sex is...outdated, to say the least.
There's also a lot of other things that would just piss off any number of readers even outside of the romance genre. Naming a group chat of men in their 30s "The Onii-chans" seriously shows a lack of awareness of the wider pop culture conversation around that term and is really something that an editor with a great eye would have spotted.
In fact, I think a lot of the problems of the book could have been solved by a developmental edit because there are bits and pieces of it that could be a great story given proper guidance and coaxing from a skilled editor. I don't know who edited this book, but they certainly did not spend enough time in either journalism, crime fiction, or romance, because they should have spotted a lot of the things that hobble the novel.
And I'm just talking about the story itself! Because throughout the book, there are a lot of glaring grammatical mistakes, whether it's preposition use or tenses or just whole words missing from paragraphs. I know that awards reflect the taste of the people doing the judging but I would think that for a book award, grammar should at least play a bigger role over vibes?
I tried really hard to not let that National Book Award sticker influence how I approached the book but I did end up thinking how did this even become a finalist? Again, it's different strokes for different folks, but considering the honestly unpolished state of the book I bought, who is stroking to this, pun intended? Did the judges receive a different copy than the one I bought?
As I've grown older, I've learned to not take awards at face value. As much as they're a good guideline, at the end of the day they're just validating the taste of a certain group of people and the taste of that group of people may not be your taste. Which is a longwinded way of saying that as much as I was drawn by the National Book Award sticker on the cover, I tried to get into this book with as few expectations as possible.
As someone who enjoys anime, I liked the references that I recognized and was intrigued by the ones that I've never heard of. The ones I've never heard of were especially intriguing especially when they were connected to the murders featured in the book.
Another thing that I liked, which I admit is something that I've grown to like as I've gotten older, is recognizing some of the landmarks mentioned in the book. I've spent so much of my childhood (childhood?) reading books from Western authors with locations I can never fully visualize in my head and now that I've been reading more and more local work it's refreshing to see my world reflected back to me.
Since this is partly crime fiction, it did give me a little satisfaction that I'd already figured out who the killer was more or less 50 pages in because it made me feel like I had been picking up on the clues sprinkled all over the book. Although I can also understand people finding that as a negative because you sort of want your crime fiction to keep you guessing until the reveal. Your mileage may vary!
But when we dig deeper into the book, we really get to see the cracks that the National Book Award sticker on the cover fails to hide. The ease with which one can figure out who did the murders is one thing, but liking or disliking that could be a matter of taste. What's a little harder to ignore is how some of the situations in the crime fiction parts of the story just seem...improbable.
Derek Guerrero, for instance, leaned a little too heavily into Gary Stu territory. While I didn't cover the police beat when I worked for a newspaper, I had friends who did and quite frankly there's literally two other people I know who came from police beat that most Filipinos know by name, and they got that fame from radio and television work and not from their time in the newspaper. The amount of people that knew of Derek Guerrero and his "reputation" ranged from security guards to actual officers of the law and it was just a little too much for me. If you're that known for your newspaper writing and you haven't parlayed your fame into at least a radio gig then I just can't buy into the whole fantasy. And I'm all about buying into the fantasy! I'm a fan of drag queens for crying out loud!
David's Gary Stu-ness doesn't stop with the crime fighting though, it extends into his author life as well. The book starts out by saying that he's a moderately successful crime fiction author, but throughout the book everybody just seems to know him and his work. Even readers from an entirely different genre like romance know about his crime fiction work, and as anybody who's spent any amount of time in romancelandia knows, that means you're pretty freaking famous if even pretty faithful audiences like romance readers know about your work. So what's the truth?
And since we're talking about romance readers, I don't think the romance parts of the novel aren't going to go over very well either. Derek says some pretty unflattering things about the genre, mostly outdated things and generalizations that aren't really even about the genre itself but about authors who publish on sites like Wattpad. I don't think he really redeems himself by the end of the novel either. In fact, he probably ends up looking even worse and I can't even say why because I don't know how to hide spoilers here.
Derek isn't really written well as a romantic lead either, especially if you're an avid romance reader. He's very Nice GuyTM throughout the book and rather than seem gentlemanly, he comes off as being sanctimonious. It doesn't help that his sanctimoniousness is supported by the book. The novel's attitude towards sex is...outdated, to say the least.
There's also a lot of other things that would just piss off any number of readers even outside of the romance genre. Naming a group chat of men in their 30s "The Onii-chans" seriously shows a lack of awareness of the wider pop culture conversation around that term and is really something that an editor with a great eye would have spotted.
In fact, I think a lot of the problems of the book could have been solved by a developmental edit because there are bits and pieces of it that could be a great story given proper guidance and coaxing from a skilled editor. I don't know who edited this book, but they certainly did not spend enough time in either journalism, crime fiction, or romance, because they should have spotted a lot of the things that hobble the novel.
And I'm just talking about the story itself! Because throughout the book, there are a lot of glaring grammatical mistakes, whether it's preposition use or tenses or just whole words missing from paragraphs. I know that awards reflect the taste of the people doing the judging but I would think that for a book award, grammar should at least play a bigger role over vibes?
I tried really hard to not let that National Book Award sticker influence how I approached the book but I did end up thinking how did this even become a finalist? Again, it's different strokes for different folks, but considering the honestly unpolished state of the book I bought, who is stroking to this, pun intended? Did the judges receive a different copy than the one I bought?
April 20, 2024
#BernardReads | BOOK REVIEW 📚
The Secret of Derek Guerrero by #MarkManalang 🧐
“If falling in love with you is a crime, will the feelings you return be my justice?”
At first glance and after reading the blurb, the premise gives me a strong #crimefiction vibe with a cherry on top. What else can make me think about crime fiction with anime? I mean, we have Detective Conan, but in this book, if you don't read the blurb, just the names of the chapter titles, you'll think it's pure #romancefiction.
It had me excited to know if my expectations were right. The story set-up is so meta, that I thought I was watching some Korean action-drama or reading a romance manga.
The fact that the main character wanted to write a romance story even though he's a crime thriller novelist becomes a reality when he meets a bestselling online romance writer.
Loved that it naturally weaves the culture of writers within the story, like editors, revisions, fans, coffee, bookstores, etc. Writers would definitely relate to some of the characters' demise. Also, the very tropes that the main character mocked are what he's experiencing in reality—how ironic. And I always find it funny. Yet it has a murder spree subplot that immediately started to creep in with the main two characters.
It really is a romance, like a meta-story about writing a romance story, with characters playing the tropes they are actually discussing. And the other side of the coin is a mystery. The story plays mystery tropes as well, laying out each important character, their secrets, red herrings, and Chekhov's gun.
It was hilarious whenever people assumed that our two main characters, a crime fiction writer and a romance writer, were dating, but the two didn't deny that outright. Maybe because they're so ingrained in the roleplay.
Although I felt uncomfortable with them getting close even though one is already "taken" so maybe that's really how unconventional their set-up is even though I found those same tropes in other romance movies/shows.
It is so meta that it's like watching the story within the story and the real story of the book eclipsed with each scene, especially the climactic part wherein the characters got engrossed in playing roles.
While I was reading it, I imagined it to be a Crime Kdrama with Romance or a RomCom Kdrama with crime as a subplot. Something like that. The downside is that I'm not used to reading romantic scenes, so it doesn't have any effect on me. I was more intrigued by the mystery crime part of the story hehe. It's full of references for otakus and nerds out there, animes, publishing journey, etc.
Portrayals of toxic relationships do annoy me, though. But maybe that was the point of the story—that some relationships showed there were meant not to be emulated and that the characters might somehow realize it.
By the middle, it then shifted into "blues clues" investigation crime fiction and amped up the stake, which I was waiting for after the romance part. Some characters go out of character with dubious motivations. I thought it was just to set up the mystery, but it became so consistent that I'm not sure anymore if they happened just for the drama and plot.
Even though I have to suspend a little amount of disbelief, the Onii-chans team was so cute, like the Baker Street Boys who helped Sherlock Holmes, or in this case, Derek Guerrero with the case.
The climax was cliche-driven, as expected for a novel that tried to subvert romance and mystery tropes. I just hoped that it was executed well, especially the final twist reveal.
However, Onii-chans and the ridiculousness of the final scenes made up for it. Prepare to be kilig then be astounded by a lot of crime-romance scenes, two popular genres I never thought would click with this story, plus relatable themes for writers and anime fans alike.
#bookreview #bookrecommendations #TheSecretofDerekGuerrero #DerekGuerrero
P.S. This National Book Awards finalist will be available at the Philippine Book Festival next week! ✊
The Secret of Derek Guerrero by #MarkManalang 🧐
“If falling in love with you is a crime, will the feelings you return be my justice?”
At first glance and after reading the blurb, the premise gives me a strong #crimefiction vibe with a cherry on top. What else can make me think about crime fiction with anime? I mean, we have Detective Conan, but in this book, if you don't read the blurb, just the names of the chapter titles, you'll think it's pure #romancefiction.
It had me excited to know if my expectations were right. The story set-up is so meta, that I thought I was watching some Korean action-drama or reading a romance manga.
The fact that the main character wanted to write a romance story even though he's a crime thriller novelist becomes a reality when he meets a bestselling online romance writer.
Loved that it naturally weaves the culture of writers within the story, like editors, revisions, fans, coffee, bookstores, etc. Writers would definitely relate to some of the characters' demise. Also, the very tropes that the main character mocked are what he's experiencing in reality—how ironic. And I always find it funny. Yet it has a murder spree subplot that immediately started to creep in with the main two characters.
It really is a romance, like a meta-story about writing a romance story, with characters playing the tropes they are actually discussing. And the other side of the coin is a mystery. The story plays mystery tropes as well, laying out each important character, their secrets, red herrings, and Chekhov's gun.
It was hilarious whenever people assumed that our two main characters, a crime fiction writer and a romance writer, were dating, but the two didn't deny that outright. Maybe because they're so ingrained in the roleplay.
Although I felt uncomfortable with them getting close even though one is already "taken" so maybe that's really how unconventional their set-up is even though I found those same tropes in other romance movies/shows.
It is so meta that it's like watching the story within the story and the real story of the book eclipsed with each scene, especially the climactic part wherein the characters got engrossed in playing roles.
While I was reading it, I imagined it to be a Crime Kdrama with Romance or a RomCom Kdrama with crime as a subplot. Something like that. The downside is that I'm not used to reading romantic scenes, so it doesn't have any effect on me. I was more intrigued by the mystery crime part of the story hehe. It's full of references for otakus and nerds out there, animes, publishing journey, etc.
Portrayals of toxic relationships do annoy me, though. But maybe that was the point of the story—that some relationships showed there were meant not to be emulated and that the characters might somehow realize it.
By the middle, it then shifted into "blues clues" investigation crime fiction and amped up the stake, which I was waiting for after the romance part. Some characters go out of character with dubious motivations. I thought it was just to set up the mystery, but it became so consistent that I'm not sure anymore if they happened just for the drama and plot.
Even though I have to suspend a little amount of disbelief, the Onii-chans team was so cute, like the Baker Street Boys who helped Sherlock Holmes, or in this case, Derek Guerrero with the case.
The climax was cliche-driven, as expected for a novel that tried to subvert romance and mystery tropes. I just hoped that it was executed well, especially the final twist reveal.
However, Onii-chans and the ridiculousness of the final scenes made up for it. Prepare to be kilig then be astounded by a lot of crime-romance scenes, two popular genres I never thought would click with this story, plus relatable themes for writers and anime fans alike.
#bookreview #bookrecommendations #TheSecretofDerekGuerrero #DerekGuerrero
P.S. This National Book Awards finalist will be available at the Philippine Book Festival next week! ✊
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews