APRIL 2020 - AudioFile
In a sardonic tone, Joe Lewis delivers this captivating, bloodstained, deeply twisted, hard-boiled thriller following a day in the life of Argentinian oligarch Luis Machi. A cheat, a criminal, and a rogue, Mr. Machi finds an unidentifiable dead man in his trunk and a single expended bullet from the gun he keeps in the glove box. Fans of Jim Thompson, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler will find just the right mix of blood, drugs, and suspense as Mr. Machi investigates a long list of relatives, employees, and enemies who want retribution. Ferrari doesn’t shy away from updating the genre tropes and, with the able help of Lewis, adds a few new twists with updated technology. R.O. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 01/20/2020
Argentinian author Ferrari, who works as a janitor at a Buenos Aires metro station, makes his English-language debut with an enthralling hard-boiled thriller centering on 24 hours in the life of Argentinian oligarch Luis Machi. After a cocaine-fueled tryst, Machi blows a tire on the drive home. He suspects the three spikes in his tire to be a deliberate act by someone familiar with his routine. On opening the trunk to get out the spare, Machi discovers an unidentifiable dead body handcuffed, with a single gunshot wound to the head. The likely murder weapon, the Glock he keeps in his glove compartment, is missing one bullet. Ferrari tightly crafts an intense, noir narrative crosscutting between Machi’s struggle to dispose of the body and evidence without authorities noticing and vignettes featuring the considerable number of enemies, including bitter employees and jilted family members, who would go to this extreme for retribution. Those looking for a finely honed, pitch-black crime novel will be rewarded. With any luck, the author will soon be able to give up his day job. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
"Heavy on action and dark humor . . . Like Flies From Afar is for those who like their noir fast, short and nasty." —David Gordon, The New York Times Book Review
"An existential mystery, in which corruption emerges from the inside and the most pressing dangers are those we bring upon ourselves . . . Even as we shudder at the violence, we cannot help but appreciate the ironies . . . What happens when your world blows up, when everything you thought you could count on is revealed to be a reverie?" —David Ulin, The Los Angeles Times
"Argentinian author Ferrari, who works as a janitor at a Buenos Aires metro station, makes his English-language debut with an enthralling hard-boiled thriller centering on 24 hours in the life of Argentinian oligarch Luis Machi . . . Those looking for a finely honed, pitch-black crime novel will be rewarded. With any luck, the author will soon be able to give up his day job." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Adrian Nathan West’s translation captures the grit and the poetry of this existential novel, a hard-hitting neo-noir parable whose dark humor delights as it strikes at the corrupt heart of business as usual in Argentina . . . The resolution of the mystery, a clarification of the whodunnit, is not meant to offer satisfaction. There’s no justice in this tale, just the ceaseless motion of possibilities — and more specters." —Lucas Spiro, The Arts Fuse
"Like Flies from Afar is one of those rare pulp gems that grabs readers by the throat and doesn't let go until the last page . . . This is a profane, funny, and brutal novel that moves forward at breakneck speed . . . A superb read that should be read by all fans of crime fiction. It's also a book that hopefully opens the door to Ferrari in the US. Put him on your radar." —Gabino Iglesias, The Criminal Element
"This amazing mix of crime novel and detective story—think Jim Thompson—is even more of a nightmare—think Kafka—stunning in its power and originality." —David Keymer, Library Journal (starred review)
"A darker shade of absurdist noir featuring an Argentine businessman, as contemptible as he is successful, who finds his life inexplicably falling apart . . . a madcap mixture of Kafka, Bukowski, and Jim Thompson." —Kirkus Reviews
"Ferrari’s English-language debut offers sharp social commentary, pitch-black humor, and a twist on the classic frame-up; his unsympathetic and cluelessly entitled narrator leaves readers with little choice but to align with a killer who leaves bodies in trunks." —Christine Tran, Booklist
"Not only is Like Flies from Afar a tough, perfectly constructed novel, it was written with the understanding that the noir is the new protest novel of the twenty-first century." —Paco Ignacio Taibo II, author of Four Hands
"K. Ferrari is one of the most important voices in the contemporary Argentine crime novel. His unique tone creates characters that are unforgettable—realistic and poetic all at once. Like Flies from Afar is yet another example of his literary mastery." —Claudia Piñeiro, author of Betty Boo and A Crack in the Wall
APRIL 2020 - AudioFile
In a sardonic tone, Joe Lewis delivers this captivating, bloodstained, deeply twisted, hard-boiled thriller following a day in the life of Argentinian oligarch Luis Machi. A cheat, a criminal, and a rogue, Mr. Machi finds an unidentifiable dead man in his trunk and a single expended bullet from the gun he keeps in the glove box. Fans of Jim Thompson, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler will find just the right mix of blood, drugs, and suspense as Mr. Machi investigates a long list of relatives, employees, and enemies who want retribution. Ferrari doesn’t shy away from updating the genre tropes and, with the able help of Lewis, adds a few new twists with updated technology. R.O. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2019-12-23
A darker shade of absurdist noir featuring an Argentine businessman, as contemptible as he is successful, who finds his life inexplicably falling apart.
The opening of this short novel finds Mr. Machi in the afterglow of a fellatio-induced, cocaine-driven orgasm, luxuriating in his obscenely opulent success, as he prepares to take a drive. "He doesn't need to wonder what success is, because he can feel it in the potent purr of the accelerator beneath his right foot, in the cushioned upholstery, in the power steering, in the sunlight and the stares of astonishment and envy reflecting off the BMW's gloss finish," writes Ferrari, who works as a subway-station janitor in his native Buenos Aires after having been deported from the United States in the 1990s. This is his first work to be translated into English, and it could pass as a madcap mixture of Kafka, Bukowski, and Jim Thompson. In quick order, the corrupt, politically connected Mr. Machi finds his tire sabotaged and his trunk somehow occupied by a corpse whose face has been mutilated beyond recognition. Then more clues seem to link Mr. Machi himself to the murder. He has no idea who the victim is, who the perpetrator was, or why he has been targeted. The book follows his efforts over one day to dispose of the body and the evidence and to discover the motive and culprits. He "feels there's no bottom to the pit he's fallen into," and his attempts to dig himself out find him falling deeper in. He believes he has no enemies, but as he ponders his predicament, it appears to the reader that pretty much everyone he knows could have wished him ill—his wife and their children, his employees and partners, his rivals. His daughter's boyfriend is a writer who supports himself with menial work (like the author) and has plans to write a detective novel much like this one, in which Mr. Machi would be the protagonist "and terrible things would happen to him."
Though ultimately unsatisfying as a mystery, it works as an existential parable, with a protagonist whose character is destiny.
