LATIN BLOOD: The Best Crime and Detective Stories of South America

In the countries where Bonanza is most avidly viewed, the detective story is both written and read at a more sophisticated level although it is often practiced along more traditional lines and, as editor Yates points out in some of the prefatory notes to each story, there are familiar prototypes Sherlock Holmes or Arsene Lupin. At the beginning, and at the close, there's a Borges story (his influence has been enormous) of a more cryptic nature. The first one is literally labyrinthine. In between there are 15 others ranging from the confrontation between a barber and a butcher in ""Just Lather, That's All,"" to the effectively harsh primitive ""Far South"" by Saenz, to the too lucky winner and permanent loser in Rodolfo Walsh's ""Gambler's Tale."" On the whole the tone is both more formal and allusive and disguises much that is -- and perhaps has to be -- synthetically set up in the shorter form.