"If he fixed his gaze on the photos for a few minutes, the images began to move slightly: Jazmín's hair fluttered in the breeze, her eyes narrowed, her lips murmured a word. And there she was, in front of him."
So reflects Darío, Jazmín's adoring father, following the tragic auto accident in which, according to official reports, both his wife, Cecilia, and his three-year-old daughter, Jazmín, did not survive the explosion of a fuel truck and the ensuing fireball.
There Are No Happy Loves begins with a recounting of Darío driving his family back to Buenos Aires on Route 11 at the end of their vacation when tragedy strikes. The story then shifts quickly to the city's port, where police, reporters, photographers, and Federico, now a Justice Department attorney, wait for a truck carrying a huge shipment of cocaine. Readers of the first two Verónica Rosenthal mysteries, The Fragility of Bodies and The Foreign Girls, will recognize Federico as a lawyer who plays a central role in the life of journalist Verónica.
There Are No Happy Loves can be read as a standalone novel; however, I strongly suggest reading both The Fragility of Bodies and The Foreign Girls for a much richer appreciation of the characters, especially Verónica and Federico, as well as a better understanding of where they currently are in their respective lives.
Poor Darío. After spending weeks in the hospital recovering from wounds and burns, he becomes obsessed with one thing: finding Jazmín. He has a strong feeling that Cecilia and Jazmín didn't perish in the fireball (their bodies were never recovered). Instead, he believes Cecilia kidnapped Jazmín and is hiding her from him, something she repeatedly threatened to do during their vacation, when they had several heated shouting matches.
Darío asks the police for assistance, but as far as they are concerned, the case is closed — Cecilia and Jazmín both died in the flames. Darío tries lawyers but gets the same response. As a last resort, since his brother, Lucio (from The Fragility of Bodies), told him about an investigative journalist who courageously seeks out the truth, Darío contacts Verónica. The plot is about to thicken and sizzle.
Meanwhile, at the port, the truck driver pulls out a gun and shoots himself in the temple. Then comes the shock for Federico and everyone else at the scene: they discover that the refrigerated truck is not filled with cocaine, but with body parts - legs, torsos, and arms - along with several boxes of naked babies.
Are these two seemingly separate incidents linked in any way? Yes, indeed. Sergio Olguín’s novel weaves a tale based on actual historical events involving political bigwigs and the Catholic Church in northern Argentina, creating a hair-raising thriller that will keep readers eagerly turning the pages until the very end.
I'm a slow reader, but like The Fragility of Bodies and The Foreign Girls, I finished this 400-page novel in just three days. To call There Are No Happy Loves a gripping thriller is almost an understatement. If you're up for a shocking tale of church and state corruption filled with memorable men and women—most especially the gallant Federico and the gritty, gutsy, smutty Verónica—this is your book. Read it. Soon.
Argentine author Sergio Olguín, born 1967
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