Three bodies lie at the bottom of a swimming pool in a gated country estate near Buenos Aires. It's Thursday night at the magnificent Scaglia house. Behind the locked gates, shielded from the crime, poverty, and filth of the people on the streets, the Scaglias and their friends hide lives of infidelity, alcoholism, and abusive marriage. Claudia Pineiro's novel eerily foreshadowed a criminal case that generated a scandal in the Argentine media. But this is more than a story about crime. The suspense is a by-product of Pineiro's hand at crafting a psychological portrait of a professional class that lives beyond its means and leads secret lives of deadly stress and despair. It takes place during the post-9/11 economic meltdown in Argentina, but it is a universal story that will resonate among credit-crunched readers of today.
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I opened the fridge and stood there for a moment with my hand still on the door, bathed in the cold light, gazing blankly at the illuminated shelves. 1
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(@bitterlemonpub, 21 January 2010, 276 pages, ebook, copy from the publisher and voluntarily reviewed, #BlogTour 14 September via @RandomTTours, translated by Miranda France)
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I thought this would be a great read but it doesn't pan out the way I expected. I did enjoy the book for the most part but it could have been stronger. The structure is a bit odd for me. It opens well in the early chapters with the reader being told three bodies lie at the bottom of a swimming pool, a fact the characters are unaware off. I liked these early chapters and looked forward to seeing where the book went. The dead bodies are swept aside for most of the rest of the book which threw me for a loop. What follow are chapters that reveal the stories and links between all of the characters in a gated community. We get great insight into their foibles, how the community came about, what life is like cut off from everyone else and the dark secrets everyone is hiding. Some of this is fascinating but I really wanted to get back to the dead bodies. I did enjoy the plot overall but the execution didn't always work for me.
