Yesterday we covered Slow Horses, the first in the series of spy thrillers set in the contemporary British Secret Service. Today we travel back in time to 1970s Argentina, and to the heart of the resistance against the military Junta. Rodolfo Walsh’s Last Case is an historical what-if, an imagining of a desperate hunt. Unlike Horses, with its shimmering cynicism, we recognise how personally invested the characters re in their cause, and what happens when familial elements are added to the mix. Rodolfo Walsh is as well-known in Argentina as Gary Oldman is in the UK. And as a result, Elsa Drucaroff’s short but gripping novel is an ideal companion work with which to contrast Mick Herron’s blockbusters. (It’s also one for fans of David Peace.)

The concept is this: in real life, Rodolfo Walsh was an author and journalist who pioneered the true crime genre. By the 1970s, Walsh played a key intelligence role for the Montoneros, resisting and opposing the dictatorship. Shortly before Walsh was himself gunned down by the military police, he wrote Letter to my Friends, recounting the death of his daughter, Vicki at the hands of the regime. Walsh wrote the letter under extraordinary pressure and as a result it’s brief, understated and powerful. Drucaroff imagines that in the lead-up to his own assassination, Walsh was investigating Vicki’s death at the same time as fulfilling his leadership role in the Montoneros. What Drucaroff gives us is equally urgent, arresting and compelling.

For me, the meat of the novel is in the contrast between public and private roles. There’s the cause itself, for which people are prepared to take risks and enter into situations knowing that they might not come out again. But then there are their loved ones, for whom they will take other, different risks. We see strange alliances forged, and betrayals and counter-betrayals in order to preserve deeper bonds. But those bonds are not over-sentimentally presented: there’s a lot of faffing about as spouses bicker, or daughters yell at their fathers while the enemy are on their way. 

Walsh himself is not presented as a hero. He’s other things: a decent but distracted investigator who needs to be reminded that he’s forgotten a clue; he’s worn down by the strategies of the Montoneros, who are prepared to put their own people in harm’s way for what they see as the greater good. He just wants to know whether his daughter is alive, and which of the conflicting reports to believe. He isn’t sure whom he can trust, and neither are we. 

Of course, there are those who seek personal reward and advancement. But we see enough of the others, too: those who are involved in the practical effects of the cause. A scene right at the beginning of the novel sees a heist the aim of which is to distribute cooking oil and flour to workers in a village. The cast, as a result, is a cross-section through which we understand an historic struggle. Slava Faybysh’s translation of the original Spanish is accessible and atmospheric.

It’s difficult to do justice to this story. At a time when we’re surrounded by synthetic outrage, this tale provides some perspective and a real grounding, and will for many readers outside Argentina open a gateway to better understanding of that nation. Unmissable.

Thanks to Corylus Books for the review copy and to Ewa Sherman for the invitation to take part on the blog tour.