Thursday, May 11, 2017

#41: Glaxo by Hernan Ronsino

In a remote Argentinian town, at an intersection where a barbershop, a bar, a movie theater and a giant factory all squat alongside a train track getting dismantled, murder, betrayal, and revenge play out over several decades in Hernan Ronsino's Glaxo.

Glaxo is a slender, tightly-wound noir whose puzzle is intricately assembled through multiple narrators jumping back and forth in time.  Everything is packed in there from a femme fatale to a framed innocent to a stool pigeon to a corrupt official who orchestrates it all in the end. 

The denouement is especially satisfying, and caused me to thumb back through the book to see the tumblers fall.

This is Ronsino's first novel translated into English, and is as sure-handed and hard-boiled a noir as I have read.  Recommended for fans seeking new voices.

I checked this out from the Morrisson-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana and read it quickly.

No comments:

Post a Comment