Betty Boo

(Paperback)

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Description

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.

"Not for nothing is Claudia Pieiro Argentina's most popular crime writer. Betty Boo is original, witty and hugely entertaining; it mixes murder with love, political power and journalism . . .Pieiro's stylelengthy paragraphs containing a variety of thoughts, issues and dialogue with no quotation marksis challenging at first, but is soon conquered, and is definitely worth the effort. It must have been hard to translate; Miranda France has done so excellently." Marcel Berlins, The Times

Reviews

"Thursday Night Widows is a gripping story; rather like the maids and guards, we stand by and watch evil enter the lives of an obtuse, decadent, pseudo-community. There may be bloody murder at the centre of this novel, but the dystopia portrayed is an indictment not solely of an assassin but of Argentina's class structure and the willful blindness of its petty bourgeoisie." Times Literary Supplement "A fast-paced thriller, Pineiro's novel describes and critiques the lifestyles of Argentina' nouveau riche, chronicling their rise into the exclusive world of the Heights and their downfalls as the economy sours after 9/11. An excellent choice for fans of international crime stories." Booklist "Thursday Night Widows is a fine morality tale which explores the dark places societies enter when they place material comfort before social justice, and security before morality." Publishers Weekly "If you read only one crime book in translation this year, make "All Yours" the one, a book that grabs you from the start and whips along at pace. . Pineiro is a best-selling Argentinean author, and unlike many South American books this one doesn't loiter. It screams out to become a film - The Postman Only Brings Double Indemnity perhaps'. CrimeTime

Author Bio

Author: Pineiro, after working as a professional accountant, became a journalist, playwright and television scriptwriter and in 1992 won the prestigious Pleyade journalism award. She has more recently turned to fiction; All Yours (finalist for the 2003 Planeta Prize) was her debut novel. Other titles include Elena Sabe, Un ladron entre nosotros (winner of the Norma-Fundalectura Youth Literature Prize) and Thursday Night Widows. Translator: Miranda France wrote Bad Times in Buenos Aires which in essay form won the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize in The Spectator magazine. A book by the same title was published in 1998 and met with great critical acclaim. The New York Times described it as 'a remarkable achievement' and the Sunday Times as 'an outstanding book'. She has also written the novel That Summer at Hill Farm.