Claudia Piñiero – Thursday Widows

‘Thursday Night Widows’ by Claudia Piñiero and translated into English, is a story that is more than a murder mystery, it’s not a who dunnit, it’s more like a why they did it.

The story is set in Argentina and it begins with the ending, three dead bodies, so straight away I was definitely hooked, I needed to find it all out, who? what? and why? The book then time slips back to the past.

We are introduced to the rich and affluent residents of Cascade Heights, a gated and walled residential community about 30 miles away from Buenos Aires. Everything is beautiful in the Heights, everything created to be aesthetically pleasing in every way. The exclusivity of this community is emphasised by having everything they needed including tennis courts and a golf course, meaning they never needed to leave the safety of the Heights. The story concentrates on four couples, in particular, Ronie and Virginia Guevara, El Tano and Theresa Scaglia, Gustava and Carla Masotta and Martin and Lala Urovich. These all live in the same neighbourhood and the men play cards on a Thursday night at El Tano’s house while the women go to the cinema.

The story is told from Virginia’s point of view, she is a real estate agent and a resident of the Heights. We see how they live and how they hide any problems and even lied to friends never allowing anyone to see anything wrong. I had my eyes opened with one sentence ” I knew how to keep my clothes crease-free and how to leave the bedclothes scarcely rumpled…making beds and ironing clothes reminded me of what I had once had, and lost.” This just really showed how much the people had actually lost and their way of lives were just a facade.

I enjoyed the dark humour throughout the book and tongue in cheek story of how they live normal, ordinary lives. When the reason the men died is revealed it is not much of a surprise after the revelations of the book anyway. A story that takes the exclusive gated communities of Argentina and slowly tears it apart like tissue paper in one’s hands. I felt almost sorry for these people whose view on reality is so blinkered they will only see it from their own social class, imagine being that shallow a person? Well, read this book…no need to imagine then!

Thanks to Random Things Tours and the publisher for the copy of this very educational and interesting book for the Blog Tour today.