Like Flies from Afar, Adrian Nathan West
Like Flies from Afar, Adrian Nathan West
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Like Flies from Afar
A Novel

Author: Adrian Nathan West, K. Ferrari

Narrator: Joe Lewis

Unabridged: 3 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/24/2020


Synopsis

"In a sardonic tone, Joe Lewis delivers this captivating, bloodstained, deeply twisted, hard-boiled thriller following a day in the life of Argentinian oligarch Luis Machi." -- AudioFile Magazine

The first novel to appear in English by the "subway janitor by night, novelist by day," who began his writing career while an undocumented immigrant in the United States, Like Flies from Afar will demonstrate why K. Ferrari is already an award-winning star of international crime fiction. A hardboiled noir thriller, a whodunit, a black comedy, and a filthy catalog of the excesses of wealth, this is a Jim Thompson novel for the globalized world.

Mr. Luis Machi is an unforgettably loathsome and hilarious Argentinian oligarch who made his fortune collaborating with the worst elements of society—parasites, pushers, and secret policemen. He has a cocaine habit, a collection of three hundred ties, ten million dollars in the bank, and a bloody corpse in the trunk of his BMW...but as far as the body goes, he's completely innocent. He has no idea who the victim could be, or who among his many, many enemies might be trying to frame him for murder, and he doesn't have much time to find out...

The profane and uproarious Like Flies from Afar follows Machi through twenty-four hours of his eventful life—one full day in which to solve this mystery, or at least to make sure he isn't the one to take the fall.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

"This novel should come not with blurbs but with a hazardous-material warning: There's bone and gristle here, be ready for that taste in your mouth you can't spit out. First words to last, it's strong stuff." —James Sallis, author of Drive

About Adrian Nathan West

Adrian Nathan West is a novelist, an essayist, and a translator based in Spain. His work has appeared in many publications, including The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The London Review of Books, McSweeney’s, and more. He is the author of The Aesthetics of Degradation and a contributing editor at the translation journal Asymptote.

About K. Ferrari

K. Ferrari was born in Buenos Aires in 1972. He is the author of more than five novels, including Like Flies from Afar, collections of short fiction, and a book of nonfiction. Ferrari works as a janitor for the Buenos Aires metro at the Pasteur-Amia station on line B. In the 1990s, he was deported from the United States, where he and his wife were trying to find work.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Dave on December 30, 2021

I agree with Glenn Russell that there should be more mysteries/noir that are short and punchy. Simenon short, one sitting. And this 204-page book, billed as Argentinian noir, answers the call, a dark nasty farce that sends up the corrupt upper crust Argentinians in Buenos Aires. Like almost all noir......more

Goodreads review by Alejandro on October 01, 2014

Novela negra y brutal, Que de lejos parecen moscas es un típico ejemplo del género noir que logra la difícil prueba de la adaptación al gusto argentino. En la discusión eterna acerca de la posibilidad (o no) de escribir género negro en la Argentina, la novela de Ferrari responde con un rotundo sí. El......more

Goodreads review by Mike on December 29, 2019

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 n......more

Goodreads review by Uhtred on July 24, 2020

This book, written by the Argentine writer Kike Ferrari, is a short (less than 150 pages) but very concentrated noir and in the end it leaves the reader with a feeling of suspension, of absence of solution. A noir where nobody is saved, in the sense that they are all somewhat negative characters; st......more

Goodreads review by recontraluchita on March 28, 2024

pero que corno es ese final no entiendo nada estoy frustrada quede con más preguntas que respuestas......more