Betty Boo, originally published in Spanish as Betibú, is Claudia Piñeiro's fourth book to be translated into English. The real name of the titular Betty Boo is Nurit Iscar; she's known to her friends as Betty Boo because of her head of dark curls (à la Betty Boop). She was Argentina's most successful mystery writer until her fourth novel tanked, and she retreated to ghostwriting.
When Pedro Chazarreta, widower and suspected (but acquitted) murderer of his wife, turns up with his throat slit in the very exclusive Maravillosa Country Club, important people get interested fast. And Nurit Iscar is unable to resist a phone call from her ex-lover, the editor-in-chief of El Tribuno, when he begs her to move temporarily into Maravillosa to report on the attitudes and suspicions of the residents.
Out of her element, Nurit finds herself collaborating with two El Tribuno crime reporters. And as the three dig further into Chazarreta's death, they discover several other murders, and a shocking conspiracy that has spread to the highest echelons of power in Argentina.
Funnier than the works of Guillermo Martínez or Ernesto Mallo, Piñeiro has a knack for breaking up a rather dark series of murders with just the right levity--mostly provided by Nurit's slightly alcoholic friends, and her crush on one of the reporters. Fast-paced, beautifully written, Betty Boo makes it clear why Piñeiro is one of Latin America's bestselling crime novelists. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm