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Published Mar 2020
224 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
The first novel to appear in English by the "subway janitor by night, novelist by day," who began his writing career while an undocumented immigrant in the United States, Like Flies from Afar will demonstrate why K. Ferrari is already an award-winning star of international crime fiction.
A hardboiled noir thriller, a whodunit, a black comedy, and a filthy catalog of the excesses of wealth, this is a Jim Thompson novel for the globalized world.
Mr. Luis Machi is an unforgettably loathsome and hilarious Argentinian oligarch who made his fortune collaborating with the worst elements of society―parasites, pushers, and secret policemen. He has a cocaine habit, a collection of three hundred ties, ten million dollars in the bank, and a bloody corpse in the trunk of his BMW...but as far as the body goes, he's completely innocent. He has no idea who the victim could be, or who among his many, many enemies might be trying to frame him for murder, and he doesn't have much time to find out...
The profane and uproarious Like Flies from Afar follows Machi through twenty-four hours of his eventful life―one full day in which to solve this mystery, or at least to make sure he isn't the one to take the fall.
"Ferrari tightly crafts an intense, noir narrative...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)
"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." - Library Journal (starred review)
"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." - Booklist
"A darker shade of absurdist noir...Though ultimately unsatisfying as a mystery, it works as an existential parable, with a protagonist whose character is destiny." - Kirkus Reviews
"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
This information about Like Flies from Afar was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
K. Ferrari was born in Buenos Aires in 1972. He is the author of several novels, including Like Flies from Afar, collections of short fiction, and a book of nonfiction. Ferrari works as a janitor for the Buenos Aires metro at the Pasteur-Amia station on line B. In the 1990s, he was deported from the United States, where he and his wife were trying to find work.
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