Mallo, Ernesto (Needle in a Haystack [transl. from the Spanish by Jethro Soutar, pb, Bitter Lemon Press, 2010] 978-1904738565 [ - set in El Once, the historic Jewish neighborhood of Buenos Aires. Mallo utilizes the distinct cultural landscape of the neighborhood—its synagogues, specific local businesses, and unique urban atmosphere—to ground his noir narrative. Lascano is called to investigate the bodies of two executed left-wing militants during the military dictatorship. Dumped right alongside them is a third body, that of the wealthy Jewish pawnbroker/businessman, Elias Biterman. Lascano realizes that while the military junta executed the first two victims, Biterman’s murder was an ordinary, greedy crime disguised as a political execution. His refusal to look the other way forces him to investigate the local Jewish community as well as the corrupt military regime. Literary critics and reviewers have noted that Mallo uses the Jewish subplot to explicitly draw parallels between the Argentine Military Junta and the German Nazi state. In the novels, right-wing military commanders are often styled with traits reminiscent of Nazi officers (e.g., arrogant, blond captains supervising the looting of arrested citizens’ homes). The systemic violence, disappearance of citizens, and state-sanctioned theft of property are framed alongside Argentina’s historical undercurrents of anti-Semitism. When Lascano digs too deep, he must confront Giribaldi, an army major, quick to help old friends but ruthless in dealing with dissenters. – Google/AI]
International · Fiction author
Ernesto Mallo
Ernesto Mallo (born in 1948 in La Plata, Argentina) [ - a former anti-Junta militant who was pursued by the dictatorship and lives between Buenos Aires and Barcelona. He is a published essayist, newspaper columnist, screenwriter, and playwright. The first volume of his Superintendent Venancio “Perro” Lascano crime trilogy contains significant, explicit Jewish content, particularly tied to the dark history and cultural landscape of Argentina. Mallo is not himself Jewish though there is vital Jewish content in his other writing, most notably in La conspiración de los mediocres (The Conspiracy of the Mediocre), which is the chronological prequel to the Lascano series. Set in the tense months of 1975 leading up to Argentina’s military coup, this novel explores how Lascano met his beloved wife, Marisa, whose tragic death haunts him for the rest of the series. Marisa is introduced as a translator who is the orphaned daughter of Jewish parents. The narrative explicitly identifies her background, and she functions as Lascano’s gateway into a deeper understanding of political and cultural identity. Marisa’s presence is used to guide Lascano through a plot involving real-world clandestine Nazi networks operating in Argentina right before the 1976 coup. By linking Lascano’s romance with a Jewish woman to an investigation into fascism, Mallo deepens the “Jews vs. Nazis” overarching metaphor of the series.]