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The Buenos Aires Quintet (Paperback)

by Manuel V�zquez Montalb�n (Author), Nick Caistor (Translator) "A pair of eyes glances furtively at the proof on the sign: Behaviour Laboratory..." (more)
Key Phrases: tango oranges, two motorcyclists, grand chef, Buenos Aires, Don Vito, Ra�l Tour�n (more...)

4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Review
'Montalban is a writer who is caustic about the powerful and tender towards the oppressed' Times Literary Supplement; 'The modern committed writer, Montalban exposes the criminal power relationships beneath the facade of democracy' Guardian

Product Description

Gourmet detective Pepe Carvalho returns to investigate Argentina's turbulent political past.

"The modern committed writer, Montalban exposes the criminal power relationships beneath the facade of democracy." -- Guardian

When Pepe Carvalho's uncle asks him to find his son, Raul, in Buenos Aires, Pepe is reluctant. All he knows about Argentina is "tango, Maradona, and the disappeared" and he has no desire to find out more. But family is family and soon Carvalho is in Buenos Aires, getting more caught up in Argentina's troubled past than is good for anybody. Montalban's unique mix of socialist politics, sexual intrigue and cultural underworlds are given a new twist against this South American backdrop.

Manuel Vazquez Montalban lives in Barcelona, where he was born in 1939. In 1998, Montalban was awarded the Raymond Chandler Prize for his mysteries.

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Product Details

Paperback: 252 pages
Publisher: Serpent's Tail (July 1, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1852426403
ISBN-13: 978-1852426408
Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces

Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,789,201 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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#12 in Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Authors, A-Z > ( M ) > Montalban, Manuel Vazquez

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First Sentence:
A pair of eyes glances furtively at the proof on the sign: Behaviour Laboratory. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
tango oranges, two motorcyclists, grand chef, door bell rings, hidden man

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Buenos Aires, Don Vito, Ra�l Tour�n, Boom Boom, Don Leonardo, Eva Maria, Madame Lissieux, Robinson Crusoe, Jorge Luis, Maria Asunci�n, Tango Amigo, Don Lucho, Adriana Varela, The Spirit of New Argentina, Richard G�lvez, Se�ora Fieldmann, Don Favila, Eva Mar�a, Se�or Honrubia, G�lvez Aristarain, Plaza de Mayo, Se�or Carvalho, Alma Modotti, Carmen Lavalle, Lucho Reyero

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 17 books:

A Universal History of Infamy by Jorge Luis Borges on page 48, page 205, and page 233
In Praise of Darkness: 2 by Jorge Luis Borges in Front Matter, page 183, and page 188
Selected Poems by Edward Thomas in Front Matter
Jude the Obscure (Signet Classics) by Thomas Hardy on page 217
Gargantua and Pantagruel (Great Books of the Western World, Vol. 24) by Francois Rabelais on page 331

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1 book cites this book:

An Olympic Death (A Five Star Title) by Manuel Vazquez Montalban in Back Matter

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	64% buy the item featured on this page: The Buenos Aires Quintet 4.5 out of 5 stars (2)
	12% buy Southern Seas (A Five Star Title) 4.7 out of 5 stars (3) $11.20
	9% buy Tattoo: A Pepe Carvalho Mystery $10.17
	8% buy An Olympic Death (Pepe Carvalho Mystery) 4.0 out of 5 stars (2) $13.17

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4.0 out of 5 stars It All Started with a Dirty Little War, August 25, 2008

By	Grey Wolffe "Zeb Kantrowitz" (North Waltham, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Buenos Aires Quintet (Five Star Fiction S.) (Paperback)

For many years, Argentina was convulsed by the "Dirty Little War" in which the Army and the Right-Wing Business Oligarchy, 'disappeared' 30,000 people. Most of them were 'lefties' or 'radishes' (radicals) who were tortured, had their children taken away and many were thrown out of helicopters flying over the Atlantic (murder, funeral, burial, all in one).

Years later, those who survived are still looking for their stolen children. Most have been brought up by the same people who killed their parents and friends. Montalban has taken this story and turned it into a comedic-tragedy. Spending almost as much time cooking, eating and listening to 'tango music' as he does trying to hunt down his cousin. His cousin had escaped to Spain, but after twenty years has gone back to look for his daughter.

As in all his books, Montalban has taken time to spread out his theories and polemics as he sees them affecting modern Spain and Argentina. For Pepe Carvalho, had started out as a communist, became a CIA spy and then a private detective. He is a gourmet who will cook just for the joy of making food and then throw it away uneaten. He burns books by authors he feels have said nothing or to much.

Like all Montalban's books, it is a incidental treasure trove of historical and literary 'bon mots' (this one has many paeans to Jorge Luis Borges). In the end the mystery is why bother with the mysteries and just turn this one into a travelogue.

Zeb Kantrowitz

(Note: for those who have read the previous translations of the Carvalho stories, you will find a different feel to this story as opposed to those by Ed Emery. I for one miss his ability to make Montalban shine.)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Discover this author, March 11, 2005

By	D. M. Cook "sommelier" (San Francisco,CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I first found out about Manuel V�zquez Montalb�n while reading a book by Andrea Camilleri, Italy's most popular living writer, who specializes in literary detective novels. The name of Camilleri's usual protagonist is Commissario Montalbano -- a literary character as famous in modern Italy as Hercule Poirot or Inspector Maigret have been in other times and places. An Italian friend explained that Montalbano's name was an homage to the Spanish writer V�zquez Montalb�n, whose work Camilleri greatly admired. And so I became curious about V�zquez Montalban, who, I later discovered, is the most widely-read writer in Spain, and widely popular elsewhere in Europe.

Strangely enough, Manuel V�zquez Montalb�n is little-known in the United States, which is a shame, because his books are excellent. Riddled with Spanish (more properly, Catalan, since V�zquez Montalb�n was from Barcelona) literary, political, and, most famously, culinary references, perhaps they fail to resonate with the average American reader.

Montalb�n's protagonist, Pepe Carvalho, is a man with a checkered past and a bleak present: once a communist intellectual, jailed during the Franco era, briefly a CIA operative, he has become a private detective with an ex-con assistant and a prostitute girlfriend. His superficial nihilism belies a deeply human man with a deep love for Spanish culture and a soft spot for the underdog. He is a perfect centerpiece for Montalb�n's picture of a Spain still deeply scarred from the Franco years. Carvalho's one-time faith in the intellectual and the future has been shattered and replaced by deep connection with the sensual - often represented by food, for Carvalho is an obsessive gourmet -- and the immediate present.

It is the mixture of the absurdly funny, the sensual, the literary, and the touching that makes Vazquez Montalban's books successful. Carvalho may take beatings all day during an investigation, come home in middle of the night, cook up an elaborate meal, described in such vivid, almost sexual detail by V�zquez Montalb�n that the reader feels that he or she could -- must! -- head to the kitchen immediately to recreate it, and pound upon his neighbor's door at 4 AM to wake him up and share the repast with a carefully-chosen bottle of wine, during which his neighbor Fuster, a Latin scholar, makes classical literature references and critiques the cuisine.

Buenos Aires Quintet is the most ambitious, funny, touching, and ultimately fulfilling, Montalb�n I have read yet. Transplant Pepe to an Argentina also scarred from its years of dictatorship, where he goes in search of his missing cousin. "Tango, Maradona, the disappeared," he jokingly says on arrival when asked what he knows about Argentina. Ironically, these themes - and a parade of comic, often sympathetic and sometimes tragic characters - wind their ways through the book. I don't want to spoil the book by revealing too much. Just buy it and enjoy the romp.

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