About the Author
Claudia Piñeiro, formerly a journalist and playwright, is the author of prize-winning literary crime novels that are all bestsellers in Latin America and have been translated into many languages. She lives in Buenos Aires. Follow @claudiapineiro on Twitter
The Translator - Miranda France is the author of two acclaimed volumes of travel writing: Don Quixote's Delusions, a Cervantean tour through the Spanish psyche; and Bad Times in Buenos Aires, which explored the psychological condition of sullen resignation and impotent rage the Argentinians know as bronca. She has also written the novel Hill Farm and translated Claudia Piñeiro’s other novels into English. Follow @MirandaFrance1 on Twitter
About the book
When a Buenos Aires industrialist is found dead at his home in La Maravillosa, an exclusive gated community, the novelist Nurit Iscar (nicknamed Betty Boo after Betty Boop) is contracted by a former lover, the editor of a national newspaper, to cover the story. Nurit teams up with the paper’s veteran, but now demoted, crime reporter. Soon they realize that they are falling in love, which complicates matters deliciously.
The murder is no random crime. Five members of the Argentine industrial and political elite, who all went to the same boarding-school, have died in apparently innocent circumstances. The Maravillosa murder is just the last in the series and those in power in Argentina are not about to allow all this brought to light. Too much is at stake.
Review
This is probably one of those reads where less is more in the review. If you don't read or pay attention to the blurb and just read and enjoy based purely on what your presented with, as opposed to the assumption and the expectation, then I think you get a much more interesting read.
A businessman is found dead in an exclusive gated community - one with stringent rules when it comes to entering and exiting. Not a big suspect pool, right? Until Nurit - also known as Betty Boo - starts to uncover a bigger picture. A violent conspiracy of death and crime.
I think perhaps there is a lot more to say about the author and writing style than the actual plot - it's really interesting how the style is completely different depending on which book. To the point of thinking it is a different author entirely. In this book I found it fascinating the way everything was constructed in an anti-norm structure. The minor characters take centre stage and minutiae rules.
The result is this snow globe version of a crime story where the falling snow keeps the eye focused on the world around the plot and the main characters are their own microcosm. Definitely an author to read.
Buy Betty Boo at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press: pub date 14 January 2016. Buy at Amazon com. Buy via Bitter Lemon Press.
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