My Favorite Scar

August 1, 2023

�mbar would like to lead the life of an ordinary 15-year-old, with rock bands and boyfriends, but no such luck. Her father, V�ctor Mondrag�n, is a notorious gangster, and when one of his associates is murdered, father and daughter must go on the run. From the Dashiell Hammett Award--winning Argentinean author Ferraro (Cruz). Prepub Alert.

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Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2023

This character-driven thriller by Ferraro (Cruz), which won Spain's Dashiell Hammett Prize in 2022, sees 15-year-old �mbar on the run with her injured criminal father, V�ctor, seeking the people who shot him and killed his partner. �mbar transforms from observer and caretaker to accomplice while she and her father visit his criminal connections throughout the Argentinian underworld, looking for a man with a striking snake tattoo that her father remembers from the shooting. Imbuing the book with the neon trappings of classic noir, daughter and father hide out in a series of gritty hotels and safe houses and eat burgers at gas stations. The book feels like Richard Stark's Parker had a "bring your daughter to work" day and stands apart from other thrillers as Ferraro gives narrative space to �mbar's own self-discovery, including a first romance at a carnival when V�ctor leaves her behind to follow a lead. The story propels to a graphically violent ending with some plot turns that feel a little contrived but result in �mbar taking charge of her own life. VERDICT This literary thriller with The Last of Us dynamics will please readers who like thrills with substance.--Jon Jeffryes

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November 20, 2023
Argentinian crime novelist Ferraro follows up his debut, Cruz, with a brutal father-daughter road trip revenge saga. Fifteen-year-old narrator Ambar Mondragón hops from motel to safe house to motel with her gangster father, Victor, as he commits increasingly violent crimes in the border region where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet. Aware of the toll his work is taking on Ambar, Victor attempts to settle down, but his plans are scuttled when rival gangsters kill his best friend and start gunning for him. Determined to find out who wants him dead, Victor turns to a female drug kingpin, who enlists him to retrieve her stolen cocaine in return for indentifying the person behind his friend’s murder. From there, Victor embarks on an ever-bloodier journey to bring down the culprit, with Ambar in tow. Ferraro nails Ambar’s voice, especially in her detached, matter-of-fact descriptions of the spiraling violence (“Tank doubles up, shoving his face closer to me. That’s where the second kick lands. I stop counting them. There are a lot”). While the journey can be bleak, Ferraro ends on a satisfying note. For readers with strong stomachs, this offers high-octane suspense.

November 15, 2023
The daughter of an Argentinian crime boss grows up quickly and violently. Ferraro opens this sleek odyssey with a tough and resonant episode that encapsulates the entire story. After gang lord Victor Mondrag�n taps a tattoo on his forearm dedicated to his 15-year-old daughter, �mbar, her name flanked by two red hibiscuses, and calls her his favorite scar, she efficiently removes a bullet that's lodged there, something Victor taught her how to do three years ago. Their relationship is rich in love and danger. �mbar's early years were tough; she lived with her grandmother Lila after her mother left, seeing her father only intermittently. Now �mbar and Victor embark on a cross-country tour of revenge, alternating between settling scores and lying low. Their episodic travels, narrated in �mbar's crackly first-person voice, brings them into contact with several colorful characters, including her uncle Charly, prematurely infirm but proud of his perfect teeth; Victor's streetwise lady friend, Eleo, who's resigned to a quiet, hardscrabble life; and Rata Blanca, an indolent, cocky thug Victor disciplines. �mbar puts a pin in this last episode by shooting a television set. Along the way, she drops tidbits about her early years, noting, for instance, that "Dad used arcades like daycare centers." Ferraro smoothly combines elements of noir, road novel, and coming-of-age story, the last most prominently in the story's final section, significantly titled "�mbar." The climactic violence is both inevitable and devastating. A brisk, gritty crime yarn less interested in flash than in dark authenticity.

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December 1, 2023
Paper Moon meets Kill Bill in this unnerving story about how a father's violent criminal career effects his fifteen-year-old daughter. Set in Argentina (and translated from the Spanish), the book is narrated by fifteen-year-old �mbar, giving poignant insight into how her father's crimes imperil her body and soul. After �mbar's mother left them, she came under her father's tutelage. At twelve, she learned how to remove bullets and sew up wounds. At thirteen, she learned how to hot-wire a car and shoot. What she can't do is get an education or keep friends. Now, her father's best friend has been murdered and she must join him on a country-wide revenge quest, during which she often witnesses his brutality. While the violence is at times repetitive, �mbar's plight and her seemingly doomed search for escape will keep readers interested. Winner of the Spanish-language Dashiell Hammett Prize in 2022.

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