INTERNATIONAL MYSTERY
Henning Mankell, although he did not invent “world noir,” demolished the walls between English-language mystery/detective fiction and the rest of the world using the same structure to investigate just about anything dealing with the home society, truth, justice, betrayal — all the great fictional territory. Here we offer a canvas of what we carry from international writers who write mysteries, noir, cozies, historical detectives, and other gems that fit in the wide and glorious category of Mystery. Travel the world!
[Note: Georges Simenon’s works, including all the Maigret mysteries, have moved to a separate page dedicated to their author. Follow the trail!]
The Fragility of Bodies
The Fragility of Bodies
When she hears about the suicide of a Buenos Aires train driver who has left a note confessing to four mortal 'accidents' on the train tracks, journalist Veronica Rosenthal decides to investigate. For the police the case is closed (suicide is suicide), for Veronica it is the beginning of a journey that takes her into an unfamiliar world of grinding poverty, crime-infested neighborhoods, and train drivers on commuter lines haunted by the memory of bodies hit at speed by their locomotives in the middle of the night. Aided by a train driver with whom she has a tumultuous and reckless affair, a junkie in rehab and two street kids willing to risk everything for a can of Coke, she uncovers a group of men involved in betting on working-class youngsters convinced to play Russian roulette by standing in front of fast-coming trains to see who endures the longest.