Thursday Night Widows by Claudia Piñeiro

Release: January 1st 2010
Format: Ebook
Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press
Source: Random Things Tours
Find it at: Amazon, Kindle, Audible, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, TBD, Bookshop.org

“Piñeiro builds up tension through banal, domestic details and the accretion of despair in everyday marital and professional struggles. There may be bloody murder at the centre of this novel, but the dystopia portrayed is an indictment not solely of an assassin but of Argentina’s class structure and the willful blindness of its petty bourgeoisie.”

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.

The 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 byproduct of Piñeiro’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.

About the Author:

Claudia Piñeiro was a journalist, playwright, and television scriptwriter.In 1992 , she won the prestigious Pléyade Annual Journalism Award. She has more recently turned to fiction . Also, she is the author of literary crime novels that are all bestsellers in Latin America and made available in four languages. This novel won the Clarin Prize for fiction and is her first title to be available in English.

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Thursday Night Widows Review:

This book is hard to describe because it contains multiple elements, from a murder mystery to secrets and scandals.

The book starts off really well with three people falling dead in the swimming pool of a community complex in 2001. The author then flashbacks to various characters and their story-lines which alternates between various chapters leading to the incident. Firstly, I immediately got interested in Romina, Mariana and Ernesto’s story-line. I thought Mariana was a complex character and I loved the conflicting feelings she had towards Romina. As the story continued, Romina became my favorite character and I loved her relationship with Juani. Even Virginia, Carla and Lala stand out in the story.

Additionally, the author did a very nice job of showcasing the various emotional prejudices and insecurities of these people. Moreover, there are so many character in the canvas that never leaves space for a dull moment. I really enjoyed how the families intertwine with other like Carla and Mariana with the paintings, El Tano, Teresa, Martin, Lala etc. At the same time, each character brought something new to the story, which made interesting. On a side note, I also liked all the footnotes the author provided. I was happy to learn new terms like Burako and Truco.

However, my only concern in the story was in the descriptions. The book tends to be over descriptive at times. For instance, there is one whole chapter just dedicated to the layout of the complex, which I felt was unnecessary. The author spends time intricately describing the backdrop with intricate details. While I admired this at times, I felt that it slowed down the plot.

Overall, this was a very interesting and stands out from what you usually read in the crime/mystery genre.