Argentina

NO-ONE LOVES A POLICEMAN - Guillermo Orsi

Author Information
Book Title: 
No-one Loves a Policeman
Author Name: 
Guillermo Orsi
Author's Home Country: 
Argentina
ISBN: 
9780857381477
Categorisation
Category: 
Crime Fiction
Location: 
Argentina
Publisher: 
Maclehose Press
Year of Publication: 
2011

It is December 2001 and Argentina is in meltdown.  Pablo Martelli, once in an elite branch of the police force known as the "National Shame", is a shadow of his former self, scraping by as a bathroom-appliance salesman.  Late one evening, Martelli is summoned to a friend's coastal retreat.  He arrives to find his friend dead, and is caught up in a bewildering odyssey that leads him though vast, empty pampas, along endless highways and into ghost towns seething danger and brutality, to the ailing heart of his country.

Book Review: 

I came away from this book with a very strong sense of a culture that is profoundly different from my own, despite the idea that the main character Pablo Martelli seems to spend as much time driving great distances as we do.  I also came away from this book with a profound sense of confusion.  To this day, I'm really not sure what on earth was going on, I'm not even 100% that Martelli knew what was happening, and there were points when I wondered aloud if the author had the slightest idea what was supposed to be happening as well.

I won't be at all surprised to hear that many fans of straight up and down crime fiction find NO-ONE LOVES A POLICEMAN profoundly boring, profoundly confusing, profoundly pointless or some combination thereof.  It was all of that for this reader as well, although I stuck with it mostly because of a very strong sense of a culture, and because I just had this sneaking feeling that Martelli was as confused as I was.  And I did kind of like him as a character, and every now and then I don't mind having no idea what's happening fictionally.  Sort of seems to match life really.  But this is really is an odd book, and I'm not sure I would recommend it to everyone, but if you're looking for something different, then NO-ONE LOVES A POLICEMAN definitely meets that criteria.

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