THE FOREIGN GIRLS

Investigating the rape and murder of two European women she met on vacation in northern Argentina, intrepid Buenos Aires magazine reporter Verónica Rosenthal is marked for death—twice.

Vero had plans of traveling with Frida, a Norwegian, and Petra, an Italian, before the women's bodies were found on the side of the road in Tucumán. Now she's in shock, having slept with Frida in her first romantic encounter with a woman. Determined to find the killers and overturn "the social impunity that sees these crimes as a fact of life, accepted by everyone," Vero puts her life at risk by going after them on her own—in spite of the insistence of her father, an eminent attorney, that she return to Buenos Aires. Corrupt forces on both sides of the law are unhappy with her connecting the slayings of Frida and Petra to an unsolved rape and murder from years ago. And if being stalked by their hit man weren't enough, she also is being pursued by an escaped convict who landed in prison in the series debut, The Fragility of Bodies (2019), after barely surviving her bizarre vehicular attack on him and four fellow assassins who died in the attack. Even facing death in two thrilling climaxes, Verónica won't be stopped. A socially minded avenger with a streak of Dexter in her, a sexual free spirit and a die-hard romantic, she is unlike any female protagonist in today's crime fiction. And with his easy conversational approach to the darkest noir, Olguín is a real original as well.

A quirky, un-put-down-able thriller by a veteran Argentine novelist.