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kris_mccracken's review
3.0
Something of an inversion of the traditional hard-boiled detective novel, this one puts us into the mind of a cog in the brutal security apparatus of an unnamed Latin American country involved in the suppression of the people.
This is a highly staged police procedural, with our main narrator a chilling figure. Although he is ‘the new boy’, the furthest down the pecking order of a secret police unit designed to ‘upholder of the needs of the Homeland’ and perhaps the least despicable of that unit, he remains a torturer and exponent of the kind of extra-judicial murder that such ‘dirty wars’ are known for.
In the end, the mystery is really not much of a mystery. The real crux of the story is what drives the exponents of state repression, and explores the dark truths of the work of the secret police. As a work, it isn’t perfect (for instance, I’m never really convinced that we are in Latin America, as much of the manner and tone jars), but it is a worthwhile contribution to trying to understand some of the darker impulses of society.
This is a highly staged police procedural, with our main narrator a chilling figure. Although he is ‘the new boy’, the furthest down the pecking order of a secret police unit designed to ‘upholder of the needs of the Homeland’ and perhaps the least despicable of that unit, he remains a torturer and exponent of the kind of extra-judicial murder that such ‘dirty wars’ are known for.
In the end, the mystery is really not much of a mystery. The real crux of the story is what drives the exponents of state repression, and explores the dark truths of the work of the secret police. As a work, it isn’t perfect (for instance, I’m never really convinced that we are in Latin America, as much of the manner and tone jars), but it is a worthwhile contribution to trying to understand some of the darker impulses of society.
mattdube's review
3.0
This is a very slight book that reads pretty quickly from Novel Laureate Kertesz.
There's a lot to like here, especially if you're interested in "from the inside" looks at totalitarianism. This is almost like the unreconstructed pre-humanist version of the E German film "Lives of Others." Only here, you're really not expected to develop a sympathy for the interrogator/ intelligence agent. Still, the story that is told is powerful and as it grinds toward its conclusion, shocking.
I wonder about some things: is there a reason why there are so many frames thrown around this story that I'm not quite getting? Is there a reason why the story is set in Latin America and not in the former Soviet Union? I don't think I really grasped the fullness of this book, but I still appreciated it.
There's a lot to like here, especially if you're interested in "from the inside" looks at totalitarianism. This is almost like the unreconstructed pre-humanist version of the E German film "Lives of Others." Only here, you're really not expected to develop a sympathy for the interrogator/ intelligence agent. Still, the story that is told is powerful and as it grinds toward its conclusion, shocking.
I wonder about some things: is there a reason why there are so many frames thrown around this story that I'm not quite getting? Is there a reason why the story is set in Latin America and not in the former Soviet Union? I don't think I really grasped the fullness of this book, but I still appreciated it.
gbweeks's review against another edition
4.0
From http://weeksnotice.blogspot.com/2011/08/imre-kerteszs-detective-story.html
Imre Kertész is a Hungarian novelist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002, for his fiction on the Holocaust. However, he also wrote a book about Latin America, Detective Story, that was originally published in 1977 but translated into English in 2008. It is narrated by Antonio Martens, a police detective who became involved in torture in an unnamed Latin American dictatorship and now in the postauthoritarian period is on trial for murder. He was on the trail of Enrique Salinas, the son of a department store magnate, who the police believe has joined the opposition.
The essence of the novel is Martens' totally clinical and hard boiled tone. He narrates like a Raymond Chandler character, uninterested in others' pain (while complaining about his own headaches).
It's nasty work, I can tell you, but it's part of the job. We take away the offender's mind, shred his nerves, paralyze his brain, rifle through pocket and even his innards. We slam him into a chair, draw the curtains, light a lamp--in short, we go by the book. We didn't make any effort to surprise the offender with some original twist. Everything happened the way those ham-handed films would have prepared him for; everything happened the way he would expect (p. 83).
Martens never wants to mention the violence itself. Torture simply occurs, because that's the way it is, but he doesn't want to talk about blood or pain very much.
I won't spoil the ending, which has a twist, but suffice it to say the novel also examines what makes people seem guilty to paranoid and dictatorial authorities even when they have done nothing. The police start going after people, while torture and death pile up almost of their own accord.
I grasped that we had now cast away everything that bound us to the laws of man; I grasped that we could no longer place our trust in anyone except ourselves. Oh, and in destiny, in that insatiable, greedy, and eternally hungry mechanism (p. 103).
Imre Kertész is a Hungarian novelist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002, for his fiction on the Holocaust. However, he also wrote a book about Latin America, Detective Story, that was originally published in 1977 but translated into English in 2008. It is narrated by Antonio Martens, a police detective who became involved in torture in an unnamed Latin American dictatorship and now in the postauthoritarian period is on trial for murder. He was on the trail of Enrique Salinas, the son of a department store magnate, who the police believe has joined the opposition.
The essence of the novel is Martens' totally clinical and hard boiled tone. He narrates like a Raymond Chandler character, uninterested in others' pain (while complaining about his own headaches).
It's nasty work, I can tell you, but it's part of the job. We take away the offender's mind, shred his nerves, paralyze his brain, rifle through pocket and even his innards. We slam him into a chair, draw the curtains, light a lamp--in short, we go by the book. We didn't make any effort to surprise the offender with some original twist. Everything happened the way those ham-handed films would have prepared him for; everything happened the way he would expect (p. 83).
Martens never wants to mention the violence itself. Torture simply occurs, because that's the way it is, but he doesn't want to talk about blood or pain very much.
I won't spoil the ending, which has a twist, but suffice it to say the novel also examines what makes people seem guilty to paranoid and dictatorial authorities even when they have done nothing. The police start going after people, while torture and death pile up almost of their own accord.
I grasped that we had now cast away everything that bound us to the laws of man; I grasped that we could no longer place our trust in anyone except ourselves. Oh, and in destiny, in that insatiable, greedy, and eternally hungry mechanism (p. 103).
racheltanza's review against another edition
4.0
I have a feeling this is a book I could read again and again. It's short. Took me just a handful of hours to read it (maybe 3 total?), and it has one of those really great last sections that elevates an already good book to something special. It's hard to say though. I will have to read this again.
torevind's review against another edition
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
anetq's review
4.0
En lille historie om bødler og ofre - fra bødlens perspektiv - eller i hvert fald bødlens tredie underordnede, eftersom de ansvarlige som regel slipper for straf, når torturregimerne endelig vælter...
jasonfurman's review
4.0
Excellent even enjoyable -- which is not exactly the first word that is meant to spring to mind about a novella narrated in the first person by a low-level torturer/secret policy detective from a recently deposed Latin American dictatorship. Also the "crime" he is part of uncovering is heartbreaking. Altogether, reads like Kafka with more specificity or Kadare set in Latin America. Altogether it appears to have been written from the perspective of the banality of evil, with one cog in the bureaucracy, rather than the monster promised to readers in the inside flap.
girlandgiraffe's review
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
soolooee's review against another edition
2.0
I found the style and story of this book very boring. Its never taken me so long to get through such a short book.
athoughtfulrecord's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
3.0