Safe Return Doubtful

translated from the Spanish (Argentina) by Sarah Moses & published October 2025

There is quite a variety here among the 19 stories that make up this collection, but a few of them are genuinely disturbing. Violence happens in quite unexpected circumstances and is described with a deadpan tone that chills. Those are the best of the collection for me.

A ghost appears in Sensitive Skin, mentally destroying his ex girlfriend by appearing around her apartment at random times. When she meets a new partner, that man, too, starts to mentally decline, but tge girlfriend refuses to acknowledge that the ghost might have something to do with it. She simply tries to ignore it.

The title story is typical of the collection, and arguably the best. It concerns a father and daughter on a routine trip to the swimming pool. Nothing unusual happens, Downey is meticulous in his rendering of banal details, but because it’s midway through the book, and we have got to know his style by now, the tension builds, and the story certainly delivers in its final paragraphs.

Another excellent and disquieting story is The Place Where Birds Die, which opens with.. “We didn’t bury the first one deep enough.” The location’s relationship to the deaths of local birds foreshadows larger threats to the family at the story’s heart.

The stories all seem like a clip from a longer piece of writing. They are all short, 8 pages or so. Little character description is given, and the situation takes shape over the first page or so. They end abruptly. Downey leaves us wanting more.. and I do.. I’m throughly looking forward to what he does next.

My GoodReads score 4 / 5