The novel you are holding takes place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the late 1975 and early 1976, a gloomy and significant period that will lead to the bloodstained dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla. Although Argentine literature and cinema have extensively dealt with the period of the dictatorship, the same cannot be said for the immediately preceding period, which served as the nursery in which the monstrous seed of the subsequent ruthless state terrorism was cultivated and flourished.
A "historical noir" could be the characterization of "The Conspiracy of the Mediocre", given that the fictional plot unfolds in parallel and is directly influenced by the political events of the period, while the historical figures that significantly determine the political developments also play a catalytic role in the fates of the heroes, which obviously applies to the lives and destinies of thousands of anonymous citizens as well. This bold coexistence within the pages of the book is, of course, one of its most attractive features, giving a strongly realistic element to the development of the fictional plot.