Black Wolf | Juan Gómez-Jurado

Translated by Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia — Black Wolf follows on from Spanish author Juan Gómez-Jurado’s highly rated Red Queen, which is set in Madrid and forms the basis of the Amazon Prime series launched earlier this year. Comparisons have been made with Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, primarily due to some similarity between protagonist Antonia Scott and Lisbeth Salander. However, this is an entirely different pan of paella – in a delightfully unexpected way.

Read the rest of this review on Crime Fiction Lover where it was originally published.

Rodolfo Walsh’s Last Case | Elsa Drucaroff

In her first novel translated into English Argentinian writer, Elsa Drucaroff, uses true historical events and imagines a possible scenario in which a father searches for his missing daughter.

The father is Rodolfo Walsh, a well-known and significant figure in Argentina’s politics and literature. Walsh was a prolific writer and journalist credited with founding investigative journalism in Argentina. He was also head of Communications and Intelligence for Montoneros, an Argentine far-left Peronist national liberation movement that originated in Argentina in the 1970s during the dictatorship. Drucaroff’s novel is set in this turbulent time period.

One evening in September 1976 Rodolfo Walsh, his wife Lila, and their colleagues Pablo and Mariana, the founding members of the Clandestine News Agency, a group of people who distributed informative leaflets, gather at the Walsh house. While listening to Radio Colonia, a station that broadcasts news prohibited by the Argentine government, it is announced that 150 armed men surrounded a house in Buenos Aires the morning before. Four people were shot, and the death of the fifth, a woman, was not confirmed. The woman’s name was Maria Victoria Walsh, codename Hilda, better known as Vicki by family and friends. Vicki was Rodolfo’s daughter.

What if Rodolfo Walsh used his characters’ detective skills and journalistic experience to investigate his own daughter’s disappearance? Rodolfo’s frantic efforts to learn the truth about his daughter’s whereabouts after the government’s onslaught against the Monteneros Organisation members—later dubbed “The Battle of Corro Street”—follow. As he talks to witnesses and informants, some of whom say she was captured alive, and others who tell him she was killed, he alternates between feeling hope and despair.

Walsh is the primary focus of the book, which is not surprising given that his name appears in the title. Similar to Stieg Larsson, Rodolfo was a writer as well as an investigative journalist. Both died unexpectedly in their 50s. However, unlike Larsson, Rodolfo was a successful crime writer prior to his death. Operación Masacre, published in 1957, is considered the first historical non-fiction novel and was published before Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. It blurred the line between fact and fiction, combining literary and journalistic elements.

Drucaroff applies the same technique; however, while her writing style is more journalistic in nature—using brief, punchy sentences—it also has a distinctly noir feel. There’s no room for sentimentality here, despite the subject matter. The reader is given necessary information in a factual, yet descriptive, manner. e.g. “Rodolfo Walsh, head of Communications and Intelligence for Montoneros and founder of ANCLA, the Clandestine News Agency, is sitting in his armchair in his living room, stony-faced behind his glasses.”

Similarly, the novel’s unnamed narrator serves as an observer, speaking to the reader while describing a scene. We become voyeurs as we observe people going about their lives. It creates a sense of isolation, distance and a lingering dread that there’s something simmering beneath the surface. Something bad is about to happen. And it does. Even though we know how the story ends, it’s still shocking. Moreover, it shows that life continued despite the atrocities that occurred.

Rodolfo Walsh’s Last Case is an endless nest of Russian dolls. Just as you think you’ve uncovered the final layer, something piques your interest, and you’re drawn deeper into Argentina’s history. When writing a review, this presents a significant challenge. “Focus on the story Drucaroff conveys in her novel,” you tell yourself. But how can you when it’s grounded in a historically rich, if terrifying, context? This is what good fiction is meant to do. Not only does it entertain, but it also gently guides its reader to explore further and, hopefully, become more informed and enriched in the process.

About the author

Elsa Drucaroff was born and raised in Buenos Aires. She is the author of four novels and two short story collections, in addition to being a prolific essayist. She has published numerous articles on Argentine literature, literary criticism and feminism. Her work has been widely translated, but Rodolfo Walsh’s Last Case is Elsa Drucaroff’s first novel to be translated into English.

About the translator

Slava Faybysh is based in Chicago and translates from Spanish and Russian. He translated Leopoldo Bonafulla’s The July Revolution, Barcelona 1909 (AK Press), a first-hand chronicle of a weeklong rebellion and general strike followed by government repression, told from an anarchist perspective. His translations have been published in journals such as New England Review, the Southern Review, and The Common.

Rodolfo Walsh’s Last Case is published by Corylus Books. Thank you to the team at Corylus and Ewa Sherman for the opportunity to read it and partake in the blog tour. See below for other readers’ reviews.

Skin Deep | Antonia Lassa

They say the life you’ve lived is reflected in the lines on your face—each one depicting a different chapter. What if someone decides to imprint their own narrative on your skin? The first book by Antonia Lassa to be translated into English challenges our perceptions of ageing while narrating the unique story of an “artistic assassin” who preys on elderly women.

The corpse of an elderly woman is discovered in a run-down seaside flat in Biarritz. Elisabeth Audiard, a wealthy woman belonging to a family of “considerable importance”, has been brutally murdered, her body covered in strange burn marks possibly caused by corrosive acid.

Inspector Canonne of the Bayonne Criminal Investigation Team and his deputy, Inspector Frier, are tasked with finding the murderer. But this killer left no trace at the crime scene other than his bold, gruesome signature. The body is barely cold when police arrest Émile Gassiat, a 26-year-old man who was having an affair with Elisabeth. Émile, an eccentric loner and musician, has an unusual attraction to elderly women and had an affair with at least one other older woman, Iréne Duroudier. It’s Iréne who contacts Albert Larten, an ex-lawyer turned detective and wine critic, to prove Émile’s innocence. His quest to clear his client’s name takes Larten to Paris.

Inspector Canonne must prove that his sole suspect is the murderer, but since he has no solid evidence, this is easier said than done. Why did Émile use the pseudonym Maurice Darbo and who was funding his seemingly carefree musician lifestyle? Canonne has his doubts about Émile’s guilt. It was just too simple, too obvious. The murderer was most likely still at large.

Readers’ interest will be piqued by Skin Deep‘s original premise. Paris as backdrop and two eccentric main characters make for a potent, and often entertaining, marriage. Canonne has over 20 years of investigation experience, but his usual efficiency is hampered by the nagging pain caused by his recent dental implants; the hole where his tooth used to be a constant reminder of this inconvenience. He has also driven away his girlfriend, Laure, with his selfishness explaining his cantankerous mood.

Larten, on the other hand, lives in a campervan juggling crime investigation with sideline as wine critic. He also takes pleasure in experimenting with his appearance because he wants it to “act as a question mark at the end of each of the ‘sentences’ that constituted his identity.” Monique, his love interest, is less enthusiastic about Larten’s propensity for nail polish and the occasional high heel. His colourful personality makes for a refreshing change from the stereotypical crime fiction investigators we’re used to.

This is a short novel, but the reader never feels shortchanged by its length. Lassa fits exactly the right amount of detail into this punchy novel to keep us sufficiently intrigued. The seamless and nuanced translation by Jacky Collins undoubtedly also contributes to the readability of the novel.

If you like an unpredictable crime story told skillfully with subtle hints of humour and richly textured characters, Skin Deep won’t disappoint. This is a novel that not only challenges stereotypes in its depiction of characters, but also raises some questions about our perceptions and preconceived ideas of ageing, leaving ample food for thought.

“It’s our bodies that age, Albert, not us. We remain the same inside, with the same desire. And that tension becomes unbearable at times.”

Corylus has finely honed the selection of novels they choose to publish. Even though their books are sometimes short, they are always impactful and leave a much stronger impression than any 400-page doorstop novel could. Skin Deep is no exception.

About the author

Born in Paris, Antonia Lassa is an enologist who works as a consultant for different private wineries around the world. This passion for wine has been instilled in her singular detective Albert Larten, for whom each new investigation is like a meticulous tasting. Wine is savoured through the eyes, the nose and the mouth, just like the crimes found in Skin Deep, with readers being invited to get involved with their five senses.

Antonia Lassa is the pseudonym of Luisa Etxenike.

About the translator

Dr. Jacky Collins, lecturer in Spanish and Latin American Studies at Stirling University, is the Festival Director for Newcastle Noir. As ‘Dr Noir’ she regularly interviews a range of internationally acclaimed and emerging crime fiction authors at national and international events. Her series of author ‘consultations’ on the Newcastle Noir YouTube channel – The Doctor Will See You Now – is where lovers of everything crime fiction can catch up on news about latest publications.

Skin Deep is published by Corylus books and was translated by Jacky Collins. Follow along for the rest of the blog tour on the dates below.

Abyss | Pilar Quintana

It takes a particularly skilled author to capture and maintain a reader’s attention in a short novella. Both Jérôme Leroy’s Little Rebel and fellow countryman, Victor Jestin’s Heatwave were both small in size but packed a powerful punch. Columbian author Pilar Quintana, author of 2020’s Bitch, can be added to the list with her new 168 page novella.

Quintana tells a simple story with few events, but she infuses it with an atmosphere of tension and suspenseful anticipation. Her narrator is an eight-year-old girl, Claudia, who tries to make sense of the small world she lives in and the adults who inhabit it. The result is a raw and moving portrait of an unloved young girl.

Claudia’s father is a hardworking supermarket owner who hardly speaks. Every Sunday morning after breakfast, he tries to spend time with his daughter by taking her for a walk, but these outings only make Claudia more aware of her father’s silence.

“Like people drowned in a calm sea, my father’s dead… resided in his silences. Silence had sucked up his soul …. an empty shell.”

Growing up wealthy Claudia’s mother was accustomed to a certain lifestyle and even though her husband ensured that his wife and child lived a comfortable life she was still discontent. Claudia’s mother it did nothing but read celebrity magazines, tend to her jungle of plants, and criticise her daughter.

Her mother, distant and irritated by Claudia’s presence, would frequently remind her how her birth had harmed her body and that she was a clingy, ugly child. Claudia would try to remain silent and unnoticed in order not to annoy her mother. She realised it was safer to refrain from asking questions and simply leave her mother alone. It’s impossible not to sympathise with such a young child’s harsh treatment by a parent, the one person who should unconditionally love her. Nonetheless Claudia sees her mother for the cruel person she is.

“Mama laughed so wide you could see the roof of her mouth, hollow and grooved like an unfed torso.”

Claudia notices a shift in her mother’s mood when her father’s sister marries a younger man and, always observing, succinctly comments on their interactions. Even though it isn’t explicitly stated, readers can draw their own conclusions about Claudia’s mother and her new uncle. When things don’t go as planned for her mother, she falls into a deep depression and becomes obsessed with tragic stories of women who commit suicide.

“Then I saw it in her eyes. The abyss inside her, just like it was in all of the dead women,… a bottomless pit that nothing could fill.”

Claudia’s father agrees, as a desperate measure, for Claudia and her mother to spend their vacation at a villa in the mountains. The house is owned by a family her mother knew when she was a child. Rebeca, the family’s mother, vanished one night while driving up the mountain. The mystery of Rebeca’s disappearance is solved when an old car with a skeleton is discovered hidden in the abyss among the dense jungle and Claudia’s fear of losing her mother grows even stronger. She is also concerned that her father, who has to drive up the dangerous road from work at night, will suffer the same fate as Rebeca.

The house is perched on the edge of a cliff and is frequently shrouded in fog. Claudia can feel the pull of the abyss below her. The sheer drop next to the house is merely a physical manifestation of the rift Claudia feels growing between her parents.

The artificial jungle Claudia’s mother created in their home and all it represents is here too. Just like the plants at home, this jungle also obscures and conceals. She also felt her mother’s plants reaching out to her with their finger-fronds. The plants, ironically, are the only thing reaching out to her. Even when a snake almost bites Claudia, her mother barely reacts to the threat to her daughter’s life.

Abyss is devoid of sentimentality, making no attempt to elicit sympathy, instead offering an unaffected and poignant recollection of life through the eyes of an innocent. A unique and moving novella.

World Editions, the publishers of Abyss, kindly provided me with a copy for review.

More about the author

Pilar Quintana is a widely respected Colombian author. In 2007, Hay Festival selected her as one of the most promising young authors of Latin America. Her previous novel, The Bitch, won a PEN Translates award in the UK and was a finalist for the National Book Award in the US. It also won the prestigious Colombian Biblioteca de Narrativa Prize, was selected for several Best Books of 2017 lists, and was chosen as one of the most valuable objects to preserve for future generations in a marble time capsule in Bogotá. Abyss, her latest novel, was awarded the Alfaguara de Novela Prize, which is among the most prestigious awards in the Spanish language.

More about the translator

Lisa Dillman lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where she translates Spanish, Catalan, and Latin American writers and teaches in the department of Spanish and Portuguese at Emory University. Some of her recent translations include A Silent Fury by Yuri Herrera, A Luminous Republic by Andrés Barba, The Touch System by Alejandra Costamagna, and The Bitch by Pilar Quintana (a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature in the US).

Urgent Matters | Paula Rodriguez

Systemic police corruption, commitment to Roman Catholicism, and the influence of the media in Argentina—Paula Rodriguez’s debut novel highlights these realities in a country still bearing the scars of decades of political and social unrest against the backdrop of a train accident in suburban Buenos Aires.

Hugo Victor Lamadrid, a locksmith and the main suspect in the murder of a 19 year-old Paraguayan, is one of the accident victims. With 43 people dead, most of whom are unrecognisably maimed, it’s the ideal opportunity to vanish without a trace, and when Hugo’s ID and mobile phone are discovered among the wreckage, the logical assumption is that he’s died. The police aren’t convinced, so Detective Domínquez is tasked to trace Hugo. Unfortunately, his investigation is hampered by police department corruption.

Hugo’s disappearance takes the backstage to the events and characters that emerge afterwards. Rodriguez’s representation of women as complex, multi-faceted characters is noticable. Hugo’s partner, Marta is an anxious woman with a love for Turkish soap operas. When Domínquez arrives at Marta’s door looking for Hugo, Marta packs her daughter, Evelyn, and travels to Uruguay to visit her sister, Mónica. Mónica is an exhausting religious fanatic who works in a gambling establishment and sells sex toys while still managing to complete her daily quota of Hail Marys. The family matriach, Olga, is a criminal mastermind with no maternal instincts who will profit from Hugo’s disappearance. Each of these three characters is so engrossed in their own world that they fail to support Evelyn, who is dealing with puberty and the disappearance of her father. As a result, it is Evelyn’s character who elicits the most empathy.

In the blink of an eye Hugo’s disappearance becomes a media circus—mainly because Olga manipulates news outlets for her own nefarious purposes. Mónica’s front door turns into an altar packed Christ figures where Catholics gather, praying non-stop while being broadcasted live on television. Rodriguez’s journalistic experience shines through in her sardonic depiction of the characters’ reliance on media, particularly television.

The dialogue in Urgent Matters is sometimes laconic and humorous. Hugo quips as he waits to be rescued from the wreckage, “No one is saved because they pray to God or cry to a saint.” Someone needs to call the fire department.” His remark emphasises the futility of religion, which is a theme that runs throughout this short novel.

Paula Rodríguez is an important addition to a new generation of La Novela Negra authors. Claudia Piñeiro, Sergio Olguin, Eloísa Díaz and now also Rodríguez, don’t hesitate to expose the shortcomings and challenges in their society. In just under 200 pages Rodríguez shows us a glimpse of Argentine culture and religion while keeping our attention with an intriguing plot.

Urgent Matters is published by Pushkin Vertigo and has been translated by Sarah Moses. Pushkin Press kindly provided me with a review copy on NetGalley.