Safe Return Doubtful

translated from the Spanish (Argentina) by Frances Riddle

Published 2024

Inés is reintegrating into society following a fifteen year stretch in prison for killing her husband’s lover. She starts a successful fumigation business in an unlikely partnership with, Manca, a former cell-mate, whose contribution is as a private detective.

One day a request comes from a wealthy female client with a successful career in television, who asks Inés to obtain a certain poison for her. The offer comes with a large payment, and Inés is split on whether to go ahead with her request, as she could certainly do with the money, or that the risk is too great.

More than a crime novel this addresses the advances in feminism across the fifteen years of Inés‘s incarceration. Not only would she have received less punishment today than sixteen years previously, but also she emerges into an Argentina now more accommodating for women.

She is intentionally faced with a situation, the TV woman’s request, almost identical to the one that landed her in jail. The bigger question is, to what extent the world has progressed.

It stands well with Piñeiro‘s other books, but is unnecessarily longer. It’s seems the author has more to say about gender, identity and motherhood here than in her previous work, but as often is the case, less is more.. shorter sharper prose stays with the reader longer and is more entertaining to read.

My GoodReads score 3 / 5