Target in the Night

"Piglia's postmodern, brainy and sometimes funny take on the detective thriller, and it's an absolute joy to read ... nothing in Target in the Night is anything less than original -- it works both as a clever detective novel and a surprising meditation on the complications of families and the way justice works in the modern world." -- Michael Schaub, NPR "Piglia is a talented storyteller and this is a compelling potboiler, but it's less Agatha Christie and more a tale about the transformation of the Argentine pampas. Piglia opens a window into a fascinating world, leaving the reader hungry for more." -- Publishers Weekly "A paranoid marvel ... unlike any detective novel you've read ... Target in the Night challenges the philosophical merit of a story whose mysteries can be succinctly concluded. It posits that a fear of death, and a fear of embracing a world where hard truth and meaning are nothing more than abstract, idealistic concepts, propels us to reconstruct the past and impose them where they don't exist, warping that past beyond recognition. Reality cannot be conformed to an easy, coherent narrative, and the more we try, the further submerged into darkness we become." -- Caroline North, Dallas Observer "Target in the Night is as much a historical novel as it is a detective novel; the author uses genre as a convenient package from which to break into a conversation about pressing matters of today." -- Olga Zilberbourg, The Common "Everything I want detective novels to be but rarely are -- paranoid, surreal, cynical, philosophical, but, above all, entertaining. Piglia's world is fully formed and constantly peeling back layers of complexity and intrigue. My favorite book of 2015." -- Justin Souther, Malaprop's Bookstore & Cafe (Asheville, NC) "Weird detective novel from South America with a Dupinian detective and a slippery sense of identity and community. Sign me up! So far I'm reminded of Where There's Love, There's Hate, the moments of sustained "sanity" in some of Cesar Aira work, and the more detective-y mytery-y sections of If On a Winter's Night a Traveler. Another weird, awesome book from Deep Vellum." -- Josh Cook, Porter Square Books (Cambridge, MA) "A richly nuanced and sometimes adventurous novel. Piglia's novel roams through discussion on philosophy, the Jungian analysis of dreams, and the nature of freedom, but hardly a page goes by without some subtle commentary or analysis of the recent history of Argentina, where "there are no values left, only prices." In Piglia's Argentina, corruption has twisted the rules of the game so that only the innocent and the idealists are doomed." -- Terry Pitts, Vertigo "If you love paranoid pomo detective novels about neoliberal dictatorship in the Southern Cone, try Ricardo Piglia's Target in the Night." -- Aaron Bady "With a rich cast of enigmatic and colorful characters, Piglia's tale simmers with intrigue and thrilling subtlety... effortlessly blends the best elements of both literary and detective fiction. with measured plotting and a carefully constructed narrative (and a jungian dream machine!), Piglia adeptly uses his characters to reveal multiple perspectives - deftly playing their motivations and assumptions against one another." -- Jeremy Garber, bookseller, Powell's Books (Portland, OR)