“No, sir. Elvis wasn’t like some of the perverts he worked with, who got excited smashing a dude’s kidneys.”

In the opening chapters of the novel, Silvia Moreno-Garcia establishes very different voices for Elvis and Maite. This is an example of how Elvis’s voice is distinct from Maite’s—his speech patterns are more direct, more colloquial, and more abrupt.

“The alarm clock hadn’t gone off, and she was going to be late, but she had to stop at the newsstand. Would Jorge Luis’s surgery go according to plan?”

At this stage in the narrative, the reader doesn’t know who Jorge Luis is. By having Leonora think about Jorge Luis as though he is a real and important person in Maite’s life, Moreno-Garcia shows the extent to which Secret Romance is important in Maite’s daily experience.

“‘You’ve gotta have some loyalty in this world,’ Elvis said at last. He was looking straight ahead so he couldn’t see El Mago’s expression when he spoke; he didn’t want to see it lest he spot something nasty behind his eyes.”

This passage demonstrates the complexity of Elvis’s characterization. First, it shows that he stands by his principles—like loyalty—even when it’s not easy to do. His fear of El Mago’s reaction, though, shows that Elvis already suspects that El Mago isn’t the sort of man who values loyalty in the same way. Even at this early stage of his relationship with El Mago, Elvis already knows on some level that his boss isn’t entirely trustworthy.