This novel comes as a reminder of how much translated crime fiction has fallen off my radar in recent years, and also what a different flavour this author in particular brings.

The Crime writer of the national newspaper covering this murder in a gated community is a fairly new appointment, inexperienced, and is referred to as Crime Boy. His editor decides to provide a different slant to the case by installing a novelist, a former lover, in the gated community, to write a series of articles about the life that the murder victim was leading. These articles will be published simultaneously with whatever Crime Boy can provide. The victim's wife had been murdered in the same house three years earlier, but apart from the way she was murdered, was there any connection?

In addition the newspaper is still employing its former crime writer, on what he regards as fairly useless tasks, and he decides, against his better judgement, that Crime Boy needs tutelage. Between them, with Betty Boo, the three of them make a formidable team.

A most enjoyable read. ( )

This was an unusual read, and probably the only Argentinian novel I have ever read. The lack of speech marks meant you had to really concentrate on who was talking, and some of the translation decisions were odd - what is a 'supermarket ticket'? (a receipt?). Clearly Argentinian men address one another as 'dear', but it read confusingly in English, especially with the lack of speech marks - I kept wondering if a girlfriend or small child had wandered in without my noticing.

The descriptions of the gated community were interesting and faintly horrifying, but I wasn't really in the mood for the slow pace and skimmed the second half. ( )

Cuando parece que la tranquilidad ha vuelto a reinar en el country La Maravillosa, Pedro Chazarreta aparece degollado, sentado en su sillón favorito, con una botella de whisky vacía a un costado y un cuchillo ensangrentado en la mano. Todo hace suponer que se trata de un suicidio. Pero pronto aparecen las dudas. ¿Acaso algún justiciero habrá querido vengar la muerte de la mujer del empresario, asesinada tres años antes en esa misma casa? ¿Será ésta la última muerte?
Cuando parece que la tranquilidad ha vuelto a reinar en el country La Maravillosa, Pedro Chazarreta aparece degollado, sentado en su sillón favorito, con una botella de whisky vacía a un costado y un cuchillo ensangrentado en la mano. Todo hace suponer que se trata de un suicidio. Pero pronto aparecen las dudas. ¿Acaso algún justiciero habrá querido vengar la muerte de la mujer del empresario, asesinada tres años antes en esa misma casa? ¿Será ésta la última muerte?

Cuando parece que la tranquilidad ha vuelto a reinar en el country La Maravillosa, Pedro Chazarreta aparece degollado, sentado en su sillón favorito, con una botella de whisky vacía a un costado y u cuchillo ensangrentado en la mano. Todo hace suponer que se trata de un suicidio. Pero pronto aparecen las dudas. ¿Acaso algún justiciero habrá querido vengar la muerte de la mujer del empresario, asesinada tres años antes en la misma casa? ¿Será ésta la última muerte? ( )

Although she develops her main characters well, Piñeiro, it seems to me, does not have a firm grip this time on the novel she wants to write.

Is it a romance which reaches its resolution when the four lonely writers, who have failed at all their prior relationships, pair off, perhaps happily ever after? In this case the story is too thin and too obvious to satisfy.

Is it a whodunit where the motive for the crimes, definitely a trope for our times, is evident to the reader before the characters uncover it for themselves and where the means are not at all clear?

There's certainly humour in the outlandish security measures of this gated community, but how did the murderer (or assassins?) circumvent them, both in and out? About one third of the way through the book, Piñeiro goes to some length to set up what promises to become a highly comic interlude but then drops it, leaving one to wonder why it's there at all.

And there's the photograph. The characters know that it holds the key to everything (except the first murder; what was that all about?) and track down the men in it. The reader will point out that there's someone else: the photographer. The characters, who are otherwise very sharp, do not hear this until 150 or so pages later when in exasperation the reader shouts, "Who's behind the lens?"

There is some context suggested by references to Muriel Sharp's "Memento Mori" (which I haven't read) and Aeschylus' "Eumenides" (which I have). The Aeschylus is a bit of a reach.

In sum, the book is too unfocused to satisfy. ( )