Interesting look at a foreign culture.Structure of narrator a bit confusing for me jumping between assistant cop's internal angst and the third person narrator. I found the last pages the most interesting as the locals gossip and stretch the findings out of shape to suit their biases. Reminds me of current social media distortions of events.
It was pretty obvious who killed whom from the start and the story was not built around the clever detectives observing clues to work it out, but rather a social narrative as they worked toward the solution of the crime based on informer tip. I liked it especially as it was short. ( )

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En Perú, en los años 50, un joven soldado de aviación aparece asesinado y torturado. Dos policías - un teniente y un guardia - investigan el crimen. El lector no tarda en intuir hacia dónde apuntará el desenlace de esta pesquisa policial, pero su transcurso ofrece ambigüedades y quiebros imprevistos que desplazan o modifican el núcleo de culpabilidad.

"The boy had been both hung and impaled on the old carob tree. His position was so absurd that he looked more like a scarecrow or a broken marionette than a corpse. Before or after they killed him, they slashed him to ribbons: his nose and mouth were split open; his face was a crazy map of dried blood, bruises, cuts, and cigarette burns." So begins Mario Vargas Llosa's short, riveting detective novel set in a small town in 1950s Peru. After reading for the third time, I asked myself: what makes `Who Killed Palomino Molero?' so gripping, so totally absorbing? On reflection, I think there are several good reasons:

The way the story is told: we follow the path of two policeman from the local force, Lieutenant Silva and his young assistant, Lituma, as they make their rounds on foot, usually under a blazing hot sun, to solve the case. The 3rd person narrator frequently dips into the mind of Lituma, making for most effective storytelling - it is as if the emotions and actions of all the characters are intensified by Lituma's feelings and musings.

The arch of the story: the guts of the novel, the plot, follows what Aristotle outlines in his Poetics. Each successive scene develops and reveals the details of motive and character as the lieutenant and Lituma converse with one key player in the murder's drama in each chapter. We encounter unexpected twists along the way, but, ultimately, there is a sense of inevitability in how events unfold and ultimately conclude.

The subplot: nothing like a little lust to add some spice to a murder mystery. Lieutenant Silva yearns for chubby Doña Adriana, owner of the local rundown, hole-in-the-wall restaurant. As the mystery is resolved in the last chapter, so also is Lieutenant Silva's relationship with his chubby object of sexual hunger. Aristotle would be pleased.

So, all in all, a novel well worth the read and at 150 pages of large print, a novel that can be read in a day. And if you are unacquainted with Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, finishing this short work might motivate you to tackle one of his longer novels. ( )

Now I know who killed Palomino Molero. ( )