I am told that La Reina del Sur is a good novel but I find it artificial and rather stressful so far. There is a movie of it which could be better, and there is a corrido of it by Los Tigres del Norte which is worse — at least if you watch the video that comes with it.
Is my reaction to this novel so lackluster because I am already surrounded with people who resemble its characters, and do not find it relaxing that they are also in my book? I had a student react this way to a novel once, one that was well reviewed at the time.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
That novel was THE MAMBO KINGS SING SONGS OF LOVE. The student said the characters were too much like the men in his neighborhood, and it was depressing because the novel glorified the precise characteristics which will ruin your life if you take them on.
I would much rather read the Quixote, the Libro de Buen Amor and the Poem of the Cid.
Don’t forget that Pérez-Reverte is a sexist ex-foreign legionnaire, and that your malaise may be due to the fact that his novels are filled with weird sexist posturing. At least the 3 I have read were filled with such, and I no longer read his novels.
Well, yes — this does explain and affirm a lot (including the relationship to the Mambo Kings).