Betty Boo by Claudia Pineiro, Book Review

This novel is definitely not a ‘donkey at the Grand National’, as one critic once described crime fiction in relation to literature. If you like elegantly written mysteries with an international flavour, then the work of the award winning Argentine writer Claudia Pineiro is just the ticket.

Betty Boo, the middle aged protagonist, is a previously successful author who is facing failure not only in her love life but in her career as a writer. Unable to start another book, she pays the bills by ghost writing for shallow celebrities. So when an unusual opportunity at a national paper presents itself, she can’t say no. After the death of a prominent industrialist, she is drafted in to provide a more literary take on events, to be published in parallel with the articles by a junior crime reporter.

Set in the journalistic milieu of Buenos Aires, Claudia Pineiro uses her acute psychological understanding of human nature to strip bare editors and journalists alike. She dissects their relationships too with the skill of a pathologist. Pineiro, herself an experienced journalist, script writer and playwright, deftly chronicles the changing nature of traditional research and the challenges posed to journalistic integrity by the establishment, by men with money and power, men who think they can get away with murder.

When she and her colleagues uncover the possibility that a serial murderer is at work, why does the police inspector show so little interest in investigating their findings? Will Betty Boo, whose only romantic event in three years is the offer to test drive an old lover’s equipment after he’s had prostate gland surgery, find love again? If I were in the market for romance, I’m not sure I’d be hot-footing it to Argentina after reading about Betty Boo’s experiences. I’d rather curl up on my sofa and read about it from a safe distance. And I’d be pleased with myself for discovering such a readable author. 

Betty Boo is the fourth novel of Pineiro to be published by Bitter Lemon Press. London, 2016. Translated by Miranda France.

Indiana Brown