It would be a mistake...to call Ricardo Piglia's Target in the Night just a detective novel, although a murder mystery is at its heart. The Argentine author's book, released in Spanish five years ago and newly translated by Sergio Waisman, is much more than that. It's Piglia's postmodern, brainy and sometimes funny take on the detective thriller, and it's an absolute joy to read.
A classic detective novel only on the surface, Target in the Night has a deeper layer where a tightly woven construct lives, consisting of manifold voices and characters, all brilliantly constructed and interlinked. Piglia shows great mastery in executing what he wants us to think of as 'paranoid fiction' and wholly deserved the prestigious 2011 Rómulo Gallegos prize for the 'rigorous observation of facts and characters' and the 'sharpness of [...] language' of this novel.
A remarkable nonchalance comforts the reader along a tale of corruption, prejudice and carnage that could in a less urbane writer’s hands inspire some toward anxious revolutionary action...In Target in the Night, Piglia has made it clear the temperament for surviving real-world tragedy might in the end be a highly informed literary art.
