The climax is why the book is what it is, and is worth the read, peeling away the nature of the clandestine intelligence-security community of the country and its pitfalls.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC and all the best to the author for his future endeavors.

this book has a great mystery and plot that gets you from the first page. I really enjoyed reading this book, the author's able to create a great atmosphere and keep you invested.

A deeply unpleasant man has a series of deeply unpleasant things happen to him. Luis is a very bad, very rich man, and everyone knows it. When a faceless corpse turns up in his car, the list of people who might want to send him such a grisly message is a long as his arm, and includes basically everyone he has ever met, including his wife, children, and "business associates". This books is a short, rocket-fueled ride through the resentments that a man has built up around himself over a lifetime of shady deals and cocaine binges. Ultimately, this book was very fun. Recommended for people who love action films or mob stories.

Published in Spain in 2011; published in translation by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on March 24, 2020

Mr. Machi has a problem. Someone deliberately caused his BMW to have a flat tire. When he opened the trunk to find the spare, he instead found a dead body. His instinct is to get rid of the body, but it is attached to the trunk’s hinge with the fur-covered handcuffs he keeps for encounters with his mistress.

Getting rid of the body is a challenge, even in Buenos Aires, where dead bodies are not uncommon. But as he gathers the tools he needs to detach the corpse from his trunk, Mr. Machi is preoccupied with thoughts of how the body — of someone he doesn’t recognize — ended up in his car. He doesn’t think he has many enemies, certainly none who would go such extravagant lengths to cause such a serious problem. And how many of them could know about the fur-covered handcuffs?

Much of Like Flies from Afar consists of Mr. Machi scrutinizing memories of the people he has angered or alienated. His wife. His gay son. His daughter’s boyfriend. His bodyguard. Various women. People who have an interest in the Buenos Aires club he owns. The employees he fired after years of loyal service for missing a shift. Although he won’t admit it to himself or doesn’t care, it seems unlikely that anyone actually likes Mr. Machi, because he acts with a callous disregard for the people he doesn’t actively despise. Mr. Machi thinks of himself as an innocent victim, but the reader recognizes that his shallow lack of self-awareness is a barrier that shields him from self-reproach.

Like Flies from Afar is a dark comedy. Mr. Machi’s cluelessness furnishes the humor. The story, in fact, builds to a surprising punchline. Readers might be disappointed that there is no satisfying resolution of the mystery — its continuation is left to the reader’s imagination — but the ending is a satisfying, and almost karmic, non-resolution of the simple plot.

RECOMMENDED

I really enjoyed this perfect gem of a mobster novel!

Like Flies from Afar is the story of mobster, Mr. Machi, who finds a faceless dead body in the trunk of his car. He is waiting for roadside assistance after his tire is “caltropped” or intentionally flattened on the Panamericana highway. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Mr. Machi employs some muscle, Cesspit Pereyra. Cesspit, so named for his frequent use of four-letter words, is also a psychopathic killer. Kind of what you want for mobster muscle, am I right?

Mr. Machi begins to think Cesspit might have something to do with the body in the trunk. After all, the trunk was locked and the lock was unbroken. Just because you’re hopped up on multiple rails of cocaine, doesn’t mean you are unnecessarily paranoid.

I absolutely adored this short novel. I can’t wait to see it turn into the Tarantino movie that it deserves to be. Everyone is absolutely unremorsefully evil. It is such fun to get away from your daily problems by getting into someone else’s 500% worse problems. If you like mafia tales or black humor, you will love Like Flies from Afar as much as I did. 5 stars and one of my favorites this month!

Thanks to Farrar, Straus & Giroux and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

This unfortunately is a no for me. Too much vulgarity, too much sexual references, too much swearing. DNF.

Not my cup of tea. Just a little too much of everything. Sorry, I can't leave a better review. Too much unnecessary profanity, sex, etc.

WOW! This guy is great. Old school noir crime fiction set in Argentina. Fast paced-never lags-short and to the point. Sex, corruption, drugs ,violence, and dread-all wrapped in a great written short novel. If you are looking for great new crime fiction, look no further.

What the heck did I just read? I mean, I was expecting humor and profanity after reading the blurb, but this one is way too low on humor and at the other end of the spectrum on profanity. It seems the only adjectives the author has resorted to are abusive and profane to the extent that they become unbearable after a time. After all, one can just take only so much. Or maybe whatever the author tried to present as 'black humor' came out as outright abusive.

The story was alright. The end was unexpected. The narration style is different, and I enjoyed it.

Thanks to the author and the publisher for the ARC.

Verdict: I read it so you don't have to.

A very bad day in the life of Luis Machi, a wealthy, self-made businessman with some shady business practices. Like Flies From Afar is a dark, enigmatic noir along the lines of some of author Jim Thompson's work with maybe a passing nod to James M. Cain.

Basically it's the story of a self-indulgent narcissist who finds a body in the trunk of his luxury car... And it ruins his whole day. Who is the dead man? Who put him there? What is the connection to Luis Machi... Is it a warning? A random coincidence? An act of revenge?

Machi's mind, warped by drugs and paranoia, attempts to make sense of it all as he spirals into an abyss of self pity.

Luis Machi is an unsympathetic character who is hard to connect with as a reader. It took me quite awhile to get into the story. Right from the start I seemed to be playing "catch up" due to a narrative that jumps around and a good deal of stream-of-consciousness rambling that can be hard to follow. It's different and doesn't fit comfortably into categorization.

Looking through some of the feedback from other readers I see a lot of negative commentary on the explicit language - cursing and whatnot. I don't really get that particular criticism. This is a dark, gritty noir-ish tale. It would seem to me that rough language is to be expected. I didn't really see the humor aspect of it (mentioned in the blurb) but dark humor of the ironic sort has never been my forte so there's a good chance that I missed a nuanced joke or three.

I would stop short of an unqualified recommendation but... Fans of dark fiction, or gritty noir in the experimental vein might enjoy this one. My advice is try a sample before you buy.

Thanks to NetGalley, publisher Farrar, Straus and Gioroux, and author K. Ferrari for providing me with a free digital copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley for the advance reader's copy in exchange for my opinion/review. I could not get into this book. Did not finish.

The almost cliched characteristics of what wealth is and the gratuitous supposedly entertaining violence aside, I could not follow who was saying what to who. Not sure why it was so important to publish and laud this author! Maybe something else is better by him ... anyway, not for me .. i really don't get it.

Like flies from Afar is a makes you really hate the male character. I don't mind profanity or dark humor at all. I just can't find anything that made me want to read anything from this author again.

First of all, too much of vulgar swearing.
Second of all, what exactly is the point of this book?

Apart from the exquisite style of narrative translation, I can praise nothing else regarding the novel.
A fast-paced short story about Machi, who believes himself as an invulnerable being, unattainable by anything or anyone until now. The series of events occurring within twenty-four hours beats Machi to consider otherwise.
I, however, could not work my way up to completing the book without feeling slightly irritated by all the unnecessary swear words which I thought were used only to fill up the gaps in between the entire book.
But then again, the translation work is impeccably striking. I would still not recommend it for its irrational bragging all over the story.
Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this ARC in exchange of honest review.

I'm sorry to say I DNF this book. When they say this story is profane, they absolutely meant it. The vulgarity is out of control. I am a lady who loves a well placed f bomb and uses swear words daily as sentence enhancers but even this was a little much for me. The sexual references, the violence, the drug use was just not doing it for me. I couldn't connect with any of the characters. The storyline was promising and the author's writing isn't bad, I just couldn't get into.

Thank you Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an e copy of this book.

Like Flies from Afar and I are not well matched. It is a quick and queasy read. Mr Machi is a vile gangster in a wildly expensive car having a bad day. The book is gratuitously misogynistic, and full of little vignettes showing how unpleasant Mr Machi is. Machi finds a corpse in his car. In between fat lines of cocaine, he has a series of scrapes, and tries to work out who may be out to get him. Judging by his behaviour, it's a long list. It is hard for the reader to care. I am pretty sure that the book is meant to be funny, but it left a nasty tastein my mouth.

Thank you Netgalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux and K. Ferrari for allowing me to read this advance copy in exchange for an honest review

First let me say I tried to finish this book in good faith but I couldn't. The more I read it, the more frustrated and confused I got. It got to the point that it wasn't enjoyable. I read 63% of the book hoping that it would get better and things would start making sense....it didn't.

I requested the book because it sounded like a humorous madcap adventure. What I got was a book that was so filled with profanity that it distracted from the story. It was like the author was in competition with himself to see how many curse words he could get on a page. I am by no means a prude and have a rather sailorish vocabulary myself but this was over the top. His depiction of women....if meant to be humorous was degrading. I felt there was way to many names of characters in the story and it got confusing as to who was who, and what part they played in the story. Some names only appeared once or twice and never again. The writing was very choppy and it was hard to follow what was going on. It was all over the place and hard to follow. This could all be attributed to the translation of the book. Sometimes when words are spoken in one language and translated into another, it loses something along the way.

I'm curious to see how this book does and if others feel the same way. I may try to pick it up again some day and try to figure out what is going on in the story.

For whatever the story and plot outlines, the filthy language is really tough for me to get past. As someone who is quite fond of the f word, this, to me, was too much. As a woman, it is often hard to fathom the misogyny of some men, and sad to say, the eloquence in this manner by this author is horrifying.

Some of the 'dark humor' is ok, but maybe trying to emulate pulp fiction, the horror being so off the charts it becomes ludicrous, I just couldn't enjoy this much at all.

I guess smearing blood and dissolved face goop onto an Armani suit and swishing a corpse around in the trunk of a beautiful automobile must have its comedic moments- maybe they do better visually, but I must be too literal to enjoy them.