{"id":8845,"date":"2021-02-18T07:36:50","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T12:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8845"},"modified":"2021-02-18T07:36:50","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T12:36:50","slug":"stellar-new-crime-novels-from-south-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8845","title":{"rendered":"Stellar New Crime Novels from South America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Crocodile Tears by Mercedes Rosenda<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Uruguay probably isn\u2019t at the top of your list of places clever crimes are hatched\u2014with cleverer police detectives on the prowl\u2014but Mercedes Rosenda\u2019s new book, admirably translated by Tim Gutteridge, will clue you in. It\u2019s dubbed \u2018a blackly comic caper in the style of Fargo.\u2019 You may object to the descriptor, caper, as being too weighted on the comic rather than the \u2018blackly\u2019 side. But if you think of a caper as involving slightly dim criminals who can\u2019t quite get anything right, this is surely one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story begins in confusion. Diego is in an overcrowded and dangerous prison, charged with a recent kidnapping. The slippery lawyer Antinucci promises to spring him. It seems that Ursula L\u00f3pez, wife of the kidnapped man, says Diego never contacted her, never asked for a ransom. But the ransom was paid, and Diego\u2019s partner absconded with it. Still, without Ursula, he can\u2019t be convicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before long, you realize two very different women named Ursula L\u00f3pez are intertwined in the story, and it\u2019s hard to see how everything can work out well for them both. The situation looks increasingly perilous for Diego too, when he\u2019s forced to participate in an ill-conceived armored truck robbery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found Ursula and the female detective, Leonilda, especially interesting. They\u2019re women whom the men dismiss as unimportant, yet they keep the events of the story moving in unexpected directions and provide much of the wry humor. Glimpses of life in Montevideo peep through too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Repentance by Elo\u00edsa D\u00edaz<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Elo\u00edsa D\u00edaz\u2019s riveting new political thriller takes place during two tumultuous periods in Argentina\u2019s history. The present-day of the story is December 2001, when riots in Buenos Aires and elsewhere will lead to the president\u2019s resignation. These events alternate with flashbacks to 1981 and Argentina\u2019s Dirty War, a terrifying era in which the military, security forces, and right-wing death squads kidnapped, tortured, and murdered tens of thousands of supposed left-wing sympathizers. Among the murdered was the younger brother of the book\u2019s protagonist, Inspector Joaqu\u00edn Alzada of the Polic\u00eda Federal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alzada has a new deputy, Orestes Estr\u00e1tico, eager to please, alarmingly wet behind the ears, and insufferably by-the-book. A young woman from one of the country\u2019s wealthiest landowners is reported missing, and Alzada\u2019s superiors don\u2019t want him spending time on the case. After all, what kind of investigation is it? A missing person? Not enough time has elapsed. A murder? There\u2019s no body. Unless . . . Alzada and Estr\u00e1tico recall the body of an unknown woman discovered that morning in a dumpster behind the city morgue. Could they pretend she and the disappeared woman are one and the same?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alzada is an engaging character, and how he goes about discovering what happened to his family in 1981 and to the missing woman in 2001 is told from close-in point of view. You\u2019re privy to many of his thoughts and wry observations at odds with the politically correct demeanor that\u2019s his survival strategy. Especially enjoyable is young Estr\u00e1tico, who has talents Alzada doesn\u2019t expect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crocodile Tears by Mercedes Rosenda Uruguay probably isn\u2019t at the top of your list of places clever crimes are hatched\u2014with cleverer police detectives on the prowl\u2014but Mercedes Rosenda\u2019s new book, admirably translated by Tim Gutteridge, will clue you in. It\u2019s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Stellar New Crime Novels from South America - the diabolical imaginations of crime writers are alive and well in Uruguay and Argentina!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,54,266,1749,311,632,126,359],"tags":[1675,1830,1828,1829,1832,1831],"class_list":["post-8845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-detective","category-history","category-international","category-novel","category-police","category-reading-2","category-review","tag-argentina","tag-crocodile-tears","tag-eloisa-diaz","tag-mercedes-rosende","tag-repentance","tag-uruguay"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2iF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8848,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8845\/revisions\/8848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}