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A review by cardica
Death Going Down by María Angélica Bosco
3.0
Death of the Reader's 14th-highest recommendation for 2021 is Maria Angelica Bosco’s ‘Death Going Down’. This 1954 novel - translated to English by Lucy Greaves and released by Pushkin Vertigo in 2017 - strikes a bizarre point for me. I think, for the right reader, this novel is uniquely charming, and if anything we say about it intrigues you - please, go check it out, because if you are that reader, we need to get you reading this novel. Let’s talk about how it landed in 14th place for us.
Death Going Down follows the investigation of the death of German Immigrant Frida Eidinger, in a small apartment block in Buenos Aires. She didn’t live there, and the inhabitants of the building don’t know who she was. The police suspect suicide, but some curious behaviour and loose threads convince Blasi - one of the two inspectors on the case - to stick around the scene poking and prodding until someone’s mask slips. Accompanied by a suspiciously-narrated introduction, a clever-waiter of a thematic device and the occasional poetic aside, your suspicion as the reader is on the top floor from the very beginning, even though neither of our investigators would quite agree with you at the outset.
Has the building’s caretaker, Andres, been framed, or did he do a sloppy job covering up a murder? Is the disabled Don Augustin a motionless mastermind? Is there any crack in the neatly consistent wall of alibis? Despite coming in with a low-stakes urban cosy, the hallmarks are all there for a classic closed-circle mystery, and Bosco does an excellent job of never letting you forget your suspicions even while disarming you. The most clever narrative device, right from the beginning, is that the higher you go up the building, the more suspicious the characters living on that floor. The corpse is in an elevator called from the sixth floor, found by the person on the fifth, who arrived before the person on the fourth, with the following floors each having fewer opportunities to have committed the crime, right down to an entirely absent family on the ground floor. You are challenged to spend the entire novel grappling with whether this thematic device will be subverted or just… verted? The main disarmament Bosco uses is Blasi’s casual journey from suspect to suspect. You know he’s there for information, but he does as good a job feeling unassuming to you as he does to his marks, from asking for a simple photo development to adopting the victim’s dog, to almost asking a suspect out on a date. His gentle approach gets him into situations that a more openly investigative character would never find themselves in, and Bosco uses it to great effect. The unfortunate side-effect of these side-ventures is that it becomes a bit difficult to not side-line some by the end, but maybe the real mystery was the stories we lost along the way.
One of the things I liked most about the novel was its confidence in putting odd asides, internal thoughts and inexplicable observations in front of the reader, sending your best guesses to the basement of busted theories with ruthless efficiency. Of course, you can still challenge it with the classic ‘unreliable narrator’ but then you’ve only dug yourself a deeper grave. You learn a lot about the characters from their internal responses to quiet moments, and assertions to their motivations you wouldn’t get in many other novels. Despite how effective these are, we felt the stylistic choices became more poorly employed the further the novel went on, which is a shame, because I actually really liked the approach. It’s the kind of issue that I’d expect to temper on if I was to revisit the novel in a few years over a morning cup of tea. I also think it might be a wise choice to crack open a book or few on Argentinian history post World-War-2, before or as you read this, because the book is littered with the cultural aftershocks of the war and colonialism, and there’s undoubtedly a lot more depth to everything if you go armed with a bit more context.
The final thing that I found myself wrestling with over the course of the novel was our detective duo. To the best of my atrocious Spanish, I understand that Ericourt and Blasi both feature in her later works, together and as a Blasi-solo-act in some stories, and I’d be incredibly curious to see more of them. Their neither-Holmes-nor-Watson back-and-forth was oddly captivating in the way that it felt so...normal, and competent. In no way similar to Miss Marple as characters, but striking that same non-confronting note that made Marple so easy to digest. You can tell that Ericourt and Blasi were a well-adjusted duo with just enough familiarity to trust one another, but also deal with their doubts in a straightforward way that really fit the story. As I mentioned, the police start assuming suicide, and Blasi’s slow and genuine convincing of Ericourt that the case was otherwise provides a firm foothold that takes us uphill towards a climax that otherwise might never have come. When I think of Bosco’s other work being translated, it’s the evolution of these two that really beckons me.
So, neither ups, nor downs, really, for this 14th place ranking on Review Season. It’s a solid mystery that feels right at home on our list, a unique set of clues to find its solution in an ordinary setting that I enjoyed, but wasn’t hooked on. When a book this reliable is 14th on the list, you know we’ve had an astonishingly great year. I do hope you, at home, eyeing a copy of this book, are the mystical intended reader, because it will have a cherished place on your shelf.
Death Going Down follows the investigation of the death of German Immigrant Frida Eidinger, in a small apartment block in Buenos Aires. She didn’t live there, and the inhabitants of the building don’t know who she was. The police suspect suicide, but some curious behaviour and loose threads convince Blasi - one of the two inspectors on the case - to stick around the scene poking and prodding until someone’s mask slips. Accompanied by a suspiciously-narrated introduction, a clever-waiter of a thematic device and the occasional poetic aside, your suspicion as the reader is on the top floor from the very beginning, even though neither of our investigators would quite agree with you at the outset.
Has the building’s caretaker, Andres, been framed, or did he do a sloppy job covering up a murder? Is the disabled Don Augustin a motionless mastermind? Is there any crack in the neatly consistent wall of alibis? Despite coming in with a low-stakes urban cosy, the hallmarks are all there for a classic closed-circle mystery, and Bosco does an excellent job of never letting you forget your suspicions even while disarming you. The most clever narrative device, right from the beginning, is that the higher you go up the building, the more suspicious the characters living on that floor. The corpse is in an elevator called from the sixth floor, found by the person on the fifth, who arrived before the person on the fourth, with the following floors each having fewer opportunities to have committed the crime, right down to an entirely absent family on the ground floor. You are challenged to spend the entire novel grappling with whether this thematic device will be subverted or just… verted? The main disarmament Bosco uses is Blasi’s casual journey from suspect to suspect. You know he’s there for information, but he does as good a job feeling unassuming to you as he does to his marks, from asking for a simple photo development to adopting the victim’s dog, to almost asking a suspect out on a date. His gentle approach gets him into situations that a more openly investigative character would never find themselves in, and Bosco uses it to great effect. The unfortunate side-effect of these side-ventures is that it becomes a bit difficult to not side-line some by the end, but maybe the real mystery was the stories we lost along the way.
One of the things I liked most about the novel was its confidence in putting odd asides, internal thoughts and inexplicable observations in front of the reader, sending your best guesses to the basement of busted theories with ruthless efficiency. Of course, you can still challenge it with the classic ‘unreliable narrator’ but then you’ve only dug yourself a deeper grave. You learn a lot about the characters from their internal responses to quiet moments, and assertions to their motivations you wouldn’t get in many other novels. Despite how effective these are, we felt the stylistic choices became more poorly employed the further the novel went on, which is a shame, because I actually really liked the approach. It’s the kind of issue that I’d expect to temper on if I was to revisit the novel in a few years over a morning cup of tea. I also think it might be a wise choice to crack open a book or few on Argentinian history post World-War-2, before or as you read this, because the book is littered with the cultural aftershocks of the war and colonialism, and there’s undoubtedly a lot more depth to everything if you go armed with a bit more context.
The final thing that I found myself wrestling with over the course of the novel was our detective duo. To the best of my atrocious Spanish, I understand that Ericourt and Blasi both feature in her later works, together and as a Blasi-solo-act in some stories, and I’d be incredibly curious to see more of them. Their neither-Holmes-nor-Watson back-and-forth was oddly captivating in the way that it felt so...normal, and competent. In no way similar to Miss Marple as characters, but striking that same non-confronting note that made Marple so easy to digest. You can tell that Ericourt and Blasi were a well-adjusted duo with just enough familiarity to trust one another, but also deal with their doubts in a straightforward way that really fit the story. As I mentioned, the police start assuming suicide, and Blasi’s slow and genuine convincing of Ericourt that the case was otherwise provides a firm foothold that takes us uphill towards a climax that otherwise might never have come. When I think of Bosco’s other work being translated, it’s the evolution of these two that really beckons me.
So, neither ups, nor downs, really, for this 14th place ranking on Review Season. It’s a solid mystery that feels right at home on our list, a unique set of clues to find its solution in an ordinary setting that I enjoyed, but wasn’t hooked on. When a book this reliable is 14th on the list, you know we’ve had an astonishingly great year. I do hope you, at home, eyeing a copy of this book, are the mystical intended reader, because it will have a cherished place on your shelf.