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.

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.

There are no happy loves| Sergio Olguín

Veronica Rosenthal, the intrepid and inscrutable Buenos Aires reporter readers grew to love in The Fragility of Bodies and The Foreign Girls, returns in another dark thriller to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a man’s wife and child.

It’s been a while since Veronica has written anything worthwhile. Burnt-out and suffering from “professional anorexia” she’s barely holding on to her job as deputy-editor at Nuestro Tiempo. Her place isn’t in the office, but out on the street where the action is, sniffing out hard-hitting news stories and fighting injustice with her words. Her brazen attitude often lands her in trouble, risking her own and the lives of those around her. This time is no different.

When Darío walks into Veronica’s office she sees a broken man desperate to find his daughter who he is convinced was kidnapped by his wife. The family had a car accident on their way back from holiday at La Lucila del Mar. When Darío wakes up from the coma he’s been in for two weeks he is told that both his wife, Cecilia and his daughter, Jazmín, were killed. Darío isn’t convinced. His relationship with Cecilia was over. They were getting divorced and she even threatened to take Jazmín away from him. His attempts to convince authorities of his theory fall on deaf ears and he ends up at Veronica’s door, the journalist who his cousin Lucio once had a brief relationship with.

Veronica immediately recognises Lucio in Darío’s gestures and fondly remembers the train driver who helped her with her investigation and lost his life because of it. She agrees to help Darío, but there’s more to the case than the apparent kidnapping. As Veronica digs deeper, Darío admits that Jazmin was adopted under dubious circumstances through a network in the Catholic church called the Christian Home Movement. The group was responsible for organising illegal, off the books, adoptions under the guise of providing children who were “at the hands of infidels, atheists and bad Christians” with safe homes with “good, Christian people”.. The truth was that children were taken from low-income families or single mothers by a lucrative business which consisted of important members of the church, politicians and doctors.

Meanwhile Veronica’s ex-lover and Justice Department attorney, Frederico Cordova, has his own case to solve. Frederico’s unit was set to seize a shipment of cocaine due to be loaded into a container. When the lorry is searched in the port of Buenos Aires, its contents are far more grisly—human body parts. Could they have uncovered a syndicate trading in and supplying human remains to medical labs or corporations involved in the health industry?

Federico has moved on from his failed relationship with Veronica and is now dating someone who is the complete opposite of the hard-drinking, unpredictable and sexually adventurous reporter—ironically also called Veronica. Despite not being able to deal with the emotional rollercoaster of their relationship he still pines for her and Veronica is consumed with jealousy when she learns of Federico’s new girlfriend. Of course, neither wants to admit that they still have feelings for each other. When their two cases are unexpectedly linked they have no choice but to face each other.

As Frederico and Veronica edge closer to the truth everyone involved becomes at risk, especially when Veronica involves an ex-nun and they infiltrate the church to find evidence of the illegal adoptions and possible body trafficking.

Controversy surrounding the Catholic church and sexual abuse is nothing new and in There are no happy loves Olguín focusses on reports of abuse by members of the Catholic church in Argentina. It’s a grim, but relevant topic which, together with the depiction of the rot and corruption in the police and government makes for a permeating atmosphere of melancholy. Additionally Darío’s despair at he loss of his daughter is tangible and heartbreaking. Fortunately the dark tone is balanced out perfectly with brief moments of humour which will provide some respite.

Despite a fairly large cast of characters Olguín fleshes out the most important ones while the rest remain on the background, but still essential to the story. Veronica is, as it should be, the main attraction of There are no happy loves. Prickly, unapologetically brash and not in control of her emotions she’s not the most likeable character, yet Olguín somehow convinces us that she’s endearing in her own way. She’s certainly not boring and even though her explicit sexual adventures might make some readers cringe we accept that it’s part of her adventurous disposition.

Olguín is a master at combining social commentary with an intriguing plot and compelling characters. There are no happy loves is no exception and it’s certainly a strong candidate for the list of best books of 2022.

There are no happy loves is translated by Miranda France and published by Bitter Lemon Press. Thank you to them and Random Things Tours for providing me with a review copy and letting me be part of the blog tour.