The Last Tango of Delores Delgado, Author Marelle Day- Crime fiction, genre study.

Essay by Rach137High School, 12th gradeA+, March 2004

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"The Last Tango Of Dolores Delgado"- Marele Day

The novel "The Last Tango Of Dolores Delgado" (1995) is a psychological thriller burrowing into the mysterious life of Dolores Delgado, a beautiful, fiesty tango dancer who suddenly drops dead in the middle of a performance. This is where the mystery begins and private detective Claudia Valentine is there to solve it and uncover the truth about the life of Dolores Delgado.

"The Last Tango Of Dolores Delgado" both keeps and subverts conventions of the crime fiction genre. Claudia Valentine is an assertive, determine woman who lives on her own upstairs of a pub in Sydney. Claudia subverts the convention of the typical alienated hero. Although Claudia lives alone and admits "my personal life wasn't faring much better" she often thinks of her boyfriend and kids and lives a fairly full on social life often enjoying nights out dancing at clubs or having a few drinks at the pub.

Personal danger plays a large part in solving the mystery, "I saw a thin deadly needle hovering near my face". The novel is set in the outer suburbs of Sydney so Claudia is often putting her life at risk just by walking alone at night down the mean streets of Kings Cross. Wealth is a contributing factor to the crime as money is one of the main motives behind Dolores' murder. Although it is then interesting to note that Claudia investigates the crime with no pay involved so money only appears to be an important factor to some of the characters and their actions.

Mystery is at the heart of the text as it is in all good crime fiction texts. The accretion of evidence is what holds the novel's plot together and keeps it moving at...