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  • New Zealand Listener

    Hijacks & high jinks

    Apr 11, 2021 2 minutes
    by CRAIG SISTERSON

    ruguayan lawyer and storyteller Mercedes Rosende offers plenty in her first crime novel to be translated into English. CROCODILE TEARS, translated by Tim Gutteridge (Bitter Lemon, $24.99), is a darkly comic tale of weak men, strong women and a heist gone horribly wrong. It’s Latin American noir with shades of, shift ed to the grimy heat of Montevideo. Diego is a bumbling kidnapper praying he will survive prison, when he is unexpectedly released thanks to a shady lawyer. The price? He has to team up with the notoriously violent Hobo to hijack an armoured car. Ursula Lopez is a voyeur with an insatiable appetite, looking for a better life by any means. Inspector Leonilda Lima is trying to keep her faith in justice while scrabbling among the misogyny and corruption of her police colleagues. Lives collide, mayhem ensues. This is a deliciously dark thriller that gives readers a wink as it slips between character perspectives and authorial asides. There’s a voyeuristic quality to Rosende’s writing as she immerses us in the seamy world of her unusual characters.

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