Born in 1948, Mallo is a published essayist, newspaper columnist, and playwright. He is a former militant, pursued by the dictatorship as a member of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias, which was later absorbed by the Montoneros guerilla movement. Needle in a Haystack is his first novel and the first in a trilogy with detective Lascano. The first two are being made into films in Argentina.