Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian novelist, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010.  I have to assume his powers have waned since those heady days because The Neighborhood, his most recently published novel, is a minor work of little significance.  It’s a story composed of several strands tied together to make up what was clearly intended to be an angry and cutting indictment of Peru under the control of Alberto Fujimori.  Sadly, the plot is trite and its handling clumsy and clichéd.  There’s little or nothing to recommend the novel and it can only detract from a distinguished writer’s legacy.