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After Ricardo Strapasa's previous brilliance, we expected much more than "an eye for a tooth"

Ricardo Strapasa's book begins as a familiar Hollywood suspense story, but quickly understands this is not the case.

The Argentine writer has created a satire that applies wherever there are democratic laws and a system of balances and brakes.

The problem is that despite Strapasa's sophistication, the satire is not funny and the book lacks uniqueness

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• Ricardo Strapasa

David Rosenthal

Tuesday, October 12, 2021, 00:00

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Makes it immediately clear that this is not a real thriller.

Cover of the book "An eye under a tooth" by Ricardo Strapasa (Photo: Nine Souls)

A familiar Hollywood story.

A policeman is about to retire, murder cases are shaking the district and the police understand that it is impossible without the pensioner in the making.

Just before he walks out the door, the policeman makes a U-turn to the office, moves everyone aside and begins to show that what he has forgotten, the young colleagues have not yet learned.

From this starting point, Ricardo Strapasa wrote The Eye Under a Tooth, a 75-page booklet published in 2014 and recently translated by Nine Souls Publishing.

The place is Buenos Aires.

Murders terrify the metropolis and Detective Navarro, at the end of his retirement proceedings, is recruited to locate the killer.

His first confrontation with the forensic experts does not bode well, but he does not despair - he knows he will solve the mystery.

Really? As the plot progresses we realize that the forensic experts are the smaller problem of Navarro, who has had to deal with the twisted bureaucracy of the justice system. We are all familiar with the phenomenon where judges create barriers to investigative proceedings, Navarro really suffers from it. There is only one problem: his demands for mass arrests are unfounded and illogical, which makes it difficult for us to decide who we are for - Navarro and his stupid hallucinations, or the judges who just land on his head blow after blow.

As can be immediately understood from the length of the book, its style, and later also its unfounded plot, this is not a real thriller. Strapasa created a satire that attacked wherever there are, or at least are trying to exist, democratic laws and a system of balances and brakes. The satire is directed at the two enforcement systems, the police and the judiciary, without any discrimination. Along with self-directed and self-conscious homophobia.

It is not clear if this was the source of inspiration for the book, but right on the front pages I was reminded of "On the Way Down," Joel Schumacher's excellent film.

So Robert Duvall played the role of Officer Martin Prendergast, who on his last day on the job goes out to investigate a series of acts of violence in Los Angeles, for which William Foster (Michael Douglas), a man fed up with the sands of the American system, was responsible.

It was a brilliant document from which satire and macabre simply abounded.

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until next time.

Ricardo Strapasa (Photo: Lola García Garrido)

I made my acquaintance with Strapasa almost five years ago with "the Chinese who read a newspaper in a gallows." It was a delightful read that does good on the heart, which is a little hard to say about "an eye for a tooth." This is not an absolute suffering, far from it - it is still easy to get through the simple language and plot line that characterize the author's style, just the result is not the same result. Satire is there, and even understandable to whom it is directed, but this time it does not easily elicit any trace of a smile. Here and there an appreciation for the sophistication of Strapasa has emerged, but in general there is no sense of a special and extraordinary event.

At the point of comparison to the "Chinese who read a newspaper in a gallows" this book failed miserably. The question about its satirical effect is a bit more complex. Works of this type usually have two scores: pass and fail. This is one of those artistic products where there is no middle ground, or it produces impact or not. I admit that here I am a little hesitant. On the one hand, there is no flashback here, and on the other hand, Strapasa does touch on the failures of the police and justice systems, two bodies that are regularly at the top of the Israeli public's agenda, giving a sense of "Walla, everyone here is dumb and ignorant".

In a world where there is indeed a duty to give a grade, I would say that "an eye for a tooth" does not pass, both because of the expectation created after reading the previous book, and also because it is not sharp enough. However, you can find a number of interesting points in it, and from time to time also produce a smile at the corner of the mouth. Given that it only takes an hour to read, fans of the genre should take a look.Everyone else can just skip to the next book.

"An Eye Under a Tooth" / Ricardo Strapasa.

Spanish: Rinat Schneidover.

Publishing Nine Souls, 75 pages.

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