Run Afoul by Joan Druett

First Line: As he slumped exhaustedly in the cutter that pulled from the brig Swallow to the expedition flagship Vincennes, Wiki Coffin wondered if he smelled as bad as Lieutenant Forsythe.

As the Vincennes, the flagship of the U.S. Exploring Expedition, leads the convoy into the Brazilian port of Rio de Janeiro, careless maneuvering causes one of the vessels to run afoul of a Boston trading ship. Not only is this a shocking embarrassment, but the Boston trader is captained by expedition linguist Wiki Coffin's father.

The encounter reunites Captain William Coffin with his illegitimate half-Maori son and sets in motion a series of events that will see two men dead, William Coffin on trial for murder, and Wiki feverishly trying to find the real killer before the expedition leaves port.

The U.S. Exploring Expedition was a real expedition led by the eccentric Charles Wilkes. Expert maritime historian Joan Druett had the perfect idea to use this as the basis of a mystery series that would travel the world. I really enjoyed the first two books in the series, A Watery Grave, and Shark Island, so it was well past time to move on to the third book. Run Afoul did not disappoint.

I've read Joan Druett's non-fiction, and this woman knows her stuff. Every time I pick up a Wiki Coffin mystery I learn something without ever feeling as though I'm sitting in a classroom. In one Wiki Coffin mystery, I learned about firing cannons and felt as though I had to duck and run for cover. In this one, I learned about one ship running afoul of another and the nasty but necessary procedure for ridding a ship of rats.

Run Afoul has an excellent mystery that kept me guessing, and I enjoyed watching Wiki trying to solve it. Speaking of the main character, he is a bit of a rogue. This is book three, and it looks as though the young man is going to have a woman in every port, but the romance is certainly not overdone. No, Run Afoul is about the mystery, the superb setting, the fascinating Wiki Coffin, and the sea. It's an unbeatable combination for any historical mystery lover.

(If you find yourself wanting to read more about the U.S. Exploring Expedition, one of my all-time favorite non-fiction books is Nathaniel Philbrick's Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842.)

Run Afoul by Joan Druett

ISBN: 0312353367

Minotaur Books © 2006

Hardcover, 288 pages

Historical Mystery, #3 Wiki Coffin mystery

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Book Outlet.  

Perfect Days by Raphael Montes

First Line: Gertrude was the only person Teo liked.

Teo Avelar is a loner. He lives with his paraplegic mother in the Copacabana district of Rio de Janeiro. He doesn't have many friends... unless you count "Gertrude," the cadaver he's been working on in medical school. Gertrude is the only person he can confide in until he meets Clarice. An aspiring screenwriter, Clarice is almost Teo's polar opposite: spontaneous, exotic, and completely comfortable in speaking her mind.

Teo becomes obsessed with Clarice and begins stalking her. When she rejects him, Teo kidnaps her and takes her on a trip through Brazil that mirrors the screenplay she's writing. He's convinced that all Clarice needs is a little time to realize that they are perfect for each other, but as the trip progresses, things begin turning out in ways he did not foresee.

If you're looking for a book that makes the city of Rio de Janeiro and the vast country of Brazil come to life, look elsewhere. Perfect Days could take place in any urban setting. However, if you're looking to spend some time in the passenger seat with a psychopath at the wheel, you've certainly come to the right place.

You know from the get-go that Teo is one strange-- and potentially very sick-- young man-- unless you believe sharing your secrets with a cadaver is normal. Teo carries out his plans, convinced that he's completely in the right, and his actions almost become dream-like, carrying the reader along on a growing tidal wave of unease and dread. Clarice makes that tidal wave grow, and when Teo kidnaps her, we know she's certain to become a corpse. 

Or is she?

As the days of her captivity pass, readers learn more about her character, and hope begins to sprout.  The balance of power keeps shifting between these two characters until the outcome is not certain at all.  Speaking of that outcome, it was totally unexpected, and I'm sure it won't be to everyone's taste. I'm not sure that it's to mine to be honest. What I do know is that Raphael Montes had me hooked from beginning to end. I'm really looking forward to reading his next book.    

Perfect Days by Raphael Montes
Translated by Alison Entrekin

ISBN: 9781594206405

Penguin Press © 2016

Hardcover, 272 pages

Thriller, Standalone

Rating: B+

Source: publicist  


 

Roosevelt's Beast by Louis Bayard

First Line: After all these years, his best friend is malaria.

In 1914 a large party which includes Theodore Roosevelt and his son Kermit set out to map Brazil's Rio de Dúvida (the River of Doubt) simply because it had never been done before and the former president needs an adventure. But the expedition is not going well. Trying to travel the river is the stuff of nightmares, and Theodore and his son are captured by a mysterious Amazonian tribe. The price of their freedom? They must find and kill a beast which leaves no track and which has never been seen.

Louis Bayard has as his foundation the riveting account of the Roosevelts' actual torturous journey down the River of Doubt, an adventure that Theodore never recovered from. Upon that foundation he builds a framework of psychological suspense. Kermit Roosevelt knows before he and his father ever start out to find and kill the beast that it will be something that will haunt him for the rest of his life-- a never-ending fever dream. Yes, Kermit is the Roosevelt who "owns" the beast in the title.

Bayard's foundation-- the expedition itself-- is riveting stuff, but once he began weaving his fiction into the facts, my interest began to lag. I have a very uneven track record with psychological suspense. I seem to either love it or hate it. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I hated the psychological side to Roosevelt's Beast, but I certainly didn't enjoy it. I disliked reading about what was going on in Kermit's head so much that I found myself wanting to skip ahead to try to find sections about the expedition. (I didn't.)

If your track record with psychological suspense is better than mine, I say go for it. If yours is as spotty as mine, I would highly recommend Candice Millard's The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. It's history that reads like the finest fiction, and it's one of the best books I've ever read.
 

Roosevelt's Beast by Louis Bayard

ISBN: 9781250053114

St. Martin's Griffin © 2015

Paperback, 320 pages

Thriller, Standalone

Rating: C+

Source: Paperback Swap

The 6th Extinction by James Rollins

First Line: We should have heeded the blood...

It's just another day at the office for California park ranger Jenna Beck and her Husky, Nikko-- until the distress call comes through from a remote military research station. Although she arrives too late, Jenna and Nikko are about to become an unofficial part of the Sigma Force team. 

When emergency personnel arrive at the station, everyone inside is already dead, but death doesn't stop there. Everything in and around the research facility has been exterminated: every animal, plant, insect, bacteria.... Everything down to a depth of two feet is gone, and the destruction is spreading. It is now up to Sigma Force to find out why and how it can be stopped. Their quest takes them to Antarctica, and they're running out of time.

Everything James Rollins is famous for is here in The 6th Extinction: fascinating history, cutting edge science and technology, and an adrenaline-soaked pace. I loved the ties to history: which countries had been in Antarctica and why, Darwin visiting while aboard the HMS Beagle, an ancient Antarctica not buried under snow and ice. The science was fascinating as well, especially the look into synthetic biology. As always, Rollins' notes at the end should be required reading for anyone who wants to know how much of the book is factual. 

As much as I loved the research behind the story, the two "worlds" Rollins created (one of which is in Antarctica) just didn't grab me. In fact I was reminded of two blockbuster movies. When Kowalski says, "Something tells me we're gonna need bigger guns," I immediately thought of Roy Scheider's famous line in "Jaws," and all the talk of synthetic biology and what could be created? I heard Jeff Goldblum in "Jurassic Park" telling Richard Attenborough, "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." Sometimes it's a good thing to be reminded of other books and movies, but this time, remembering movie quotes just made this story feel stale.

Although I did tire of the non-stop action that skipped from group to group in scenarios I just couldn't believe in, I have to admit that I perked up whenever Jenna Beck and her dog Nikko walked on stage. Those two are a winning combination that I actually would look forward to seeing again. All in all however, compared with other Sigma Force adventures, The 6th Extinction doesn't quite hit the target.
 

The 6th Extinction by James Rollins

ISBN:  9780061784811
William Morrow © 2014
Hardcover, 426 pages

Thriller, #10 Sigma Force
Rating: C+
Source: Amazon Vine 

The Ways of Evil Men by Leighton Gage

First Line: Sunrise is a brief affair in the rainforests of Pará.

In the town of Azevedo in the remote Amazon jungle, the only person who is mourning the death by poison of 39 of 41 members of the Awana tribe is Jade Calmon. As the official tribal relations agent assigned to the area, Jade had been learning the language and customs of the tribe and getting to know the people. She is determined to get justice for the two remaining members of the tribe; however, racism is a way of life in the area, and it's not until she contacts friends in Brasilia that something begins to be done.

As a chief inspector in the Brazilian Federal Police, this isn't the first time that Mario Silva and his team have had to deal with tribal genocide, but their investigation in Azevedo has barely begun when a local white man is murdered and all the evidence seems to point to one of the surviving Awana. With a town about to erupt in violence, Silva and his team have to work fast.

Reading The Ways of Evil Men was bittersweet. I have been a tremendous fan of the Chief Inspector Mario Silva books since the very first one, Blood of the Wicked. But with author Leighton Gage's death due to pancreatic cancer in 2013, it was tough knowing that this is the last book in a truly remarkable series. Each book is a seamless blend of police procedural, character study, and social commentary. I can think of no other series in crime fiction that gives such a heartfelt and unflinching portrait of a country than Gage's.

The State of Pará was Brazil's modern-day equivalent of the old American Wild West. Life was cheap; violence, rife; ignorance and poverty, endemic. 

By setting his book in a place that is identifiable to anyone remotely familiar with the American Wild West, Gage lets us know that the past isn't always past. Horrible things are still happening around the world in a daily basis, and in an area where travel is difficult and distances vast, it is a simple matter for those in charge to do whatever they like. City people aren't going to care what's happening almost a thousand miles away in a place no one's heard of. What difference does it make that a tribe has been almost completely wiped out? There were only 41 of them anyway.

The characters Leighton Gage created are the type of city people to whom such atrocities matter. All it takes is one person who refuses to accept the status quo, and in The Ways of Evil Men, that one is tribal agent Jade Calmon. She knows her limitations, but she will not quit, and it's her lucky day when Silva is assigned to the case.

Silva is another person whose moral code will not let him rest, and he's assembled a team cut from the same cloth. In many ways, he's the Marshall Matt Dillon or Sheriff Walt Longmire of Brazil. If he sees something wrong, he's going to fix it. If he has to work around corrupt or lazy officials above him in the food chain, that's exactly what he'll do, and he does it with grace, style, and a dash of humor.

Silva is the man you want on your side, and as I followed him through this investigation-- as I've followed him through six previous books-- it reminded me of how fortunate the world is that people like Calmon and Silva really do exist, and that writers like Leighton Gage tell us about them. Certain events in The Ways of Evil Men show us new, exciting directions in which the author was planning to take the series, and they will forever remain speculation amongst his fans. Some of the color went out of the world when Leighton Gage died, but his literary legacy is pure gold. I can't recommend his books highly enough.

The Ways of Evil Men by Leighton Gage

ISBN: 9781616952723

Soho Crime © 2014

Hardcover, 338 pages

Police Procedural, #7 Chief Inspector Mario Silva mystery

Rating: A+

Source: publisher 

Perfect Hatred by Leighton Gage

First Line: The action began auspiciously.

The old adage "it never rains but it pours" has never been truer for Chief Inspector Mario Silva and his team. A suicide bombing which is the apparent work of militant Islamists has killed over sixty people, but the assassination of a gubernatorial candidate during a campaign rally has Silva's superiors screaming. Told to focus on the assassination, Silva doesn't. He divides his team so both cases are being worked simultaneously. He refuses to ignore the slaughter of innocents. After all-- he's been on the job long enough to know how to work around the men in higher positions.

An assassin, terrorists, tracking down explosives in Paraguay... that would be enough for anyone to handle, but there's something that Silva isn't aware of: a criminal who's just been released from prison has vowed to kill him, and he's going to do his best to get the job done.

If you want to read crime fiction set in present-day Brazil, the very first author whose books you need to get your hands on is Leighton Gage. He gives us a clear-eyed look into a system filled with corruption and bribery, but Gage also shows us that there is justice to be had. How? Through the character of Chief Inspector Mario Silva. As Silva tells someone:

"Senhora, I've been in the service of a corrupt legal system for all of my working life. I'm nothing if not a pragmatist."

"That's what Luis said. That's why I'm telling you all this."

"But I'm also an idealist. And any evil I do, I attempt to do for the greater good."

For every corrupt politician, for every bribe-taking police officer, for every barbaric person of undeserved privilege, Leighton Gage shows us that there are those who are brave enough to tell the truth and to insist upon justice for all. Chief Inspector Mario Silva and his team are among those who persist in fighting for what's right-- and one of the ways they do it is to band together as a family, to know each other's strengths and weaknesses, to make bad jokes amongst themselves to lighten tense situations. This team is one that you grow to care deeply about, and the subplot involving the criminal planning Silva's death can make your blood run cold.

All three subplots-- bombing, assassination, threat on Silva's life-- are engrossing, and watching each come to its conclusion is a pleasure. Whenever I learn that Leighton Gage has a new book coming out, I smile. I know I will be whisked off to a distant land filled with excitement, outrage, and danger, but a land where I will also be among my fictional friends. I know I said earlier that you should read these books if you want to read about present-day Brazil-- and you should-- but you should really read them if you like crime fiction writing at its best.

Perfect Hatred by Leighton Gage

ISBN: 9781616951764

Soho Crime © 2013

Hardcover,  311 pages

Police Procedural, #6 Chief Inspector Mario Silva mystery

Rating: A+

Source: the author

A Vine in the Blood by Leighton Gage

Title: A Vine in the Blood
Author: Leighton Gage
ISBN: 9781616950040
Publisher: Soho Crime, 2011
Hardcover, 304 pages
Genre: Police Procedural, #5 Chief Inspector Mario Silva mystery
Rating: A+
Source: Author

First Line: Less than an hour after Juraci Santos was unceremoniously dumped into the back seat of her kidnappers' getaway car, Luca Vaz crept through her front gate and poisoned her bougainvilleas.

The kidnapping of this woman constitutes a national emergency. You see, it's the eve of the FIFA World Cup, and Brazil is the host country. Brazil is assured of a victory due to the skill of Tico "The Artist" Santos, and since the entire country is football (soccer) mad, the level of celebration will be beyond imagining. However... Juraci Santos is The Artist's mother, and her kidnapping insures that The Artist is out of the game.

Since this is such a serious matter, Chief Inspector Mario Silva and his team are called upon to save the day (and the victory).  There is no lack of suspects, and each one must be questioned carefully, doublechecking motives, opportunity, and alibis. Are the kidnappers supporters of arch rival Argentina's team? The Artist's gold-digging girlfriend whom his mother hated? His main rival in Brazil? The man whose career Tico Santos destroyed? Or someone completely different?

I think I had a smile on my face the entire time I was reading this book. I love the camaraderie of Silva's team, how they work together and tease each other, and that was sorely missing in the last book of the series, Every Bitter Thing. (This camaraderie reminds me a bit of that enjoyed by Inspector Montalbano's team in Andrea Camilleri's excellent series.) Part and parcel of how this team works together is the skill with which Silva dangles just the right carrot in front of his burro-ish bureaucrat of a boss. The interaction of these characters is one of the things that makes this series so special.

Investigating each of the suspects turns out to be a marvelous guided tour of life in present-day Brazil, from the high to the low. It's also where Gage neatly disguises his excellent bit of misdirection. Whether I like it or not, I sometimes think I have a bit of the Eye of Sauron in me as I read crime fiction. My "eye" passes over each character until it suddenly stops, staring intently at The One Who Did It. In A Vine in the Blood, my eye was hoodwinked, and I liked that very much.

Whether it's characterization, plot or setting, A Vine in the Blood is possibly the best book in this series. If you have yet to sample it, fear not. This book stands on its own very well. My personal recommendation would be to read the entire series. Each book is a window into a fascinating country.

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A Back Room in Somers Town by John Malcolm

Title: A Back Room in Somers Town
Author: John Malcolm
ISBN: 9781933397795
Publisher: Felony and Mayhem, 2007 (Originally published 1984)
Paperback, 214 pages
Genre: Amateur Sleuth, #1 Tim Simpson Art mystery
Rating: DNF
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: Quite often, when the rain comes slanting out of the grey London sky, drenching the trees in Hyde park outside my office window, I think of a back room, another back room, in São Paulo, where the slatted bright stripes of sunlight fell across the rumpled bedclothes and warm skin, like a painting by Bernard Dunstan.

John Malcolm is an acknowledged expert in the field of art and antiques, and each book in his series of mysteries featuring Tim Simpson centers on a specific (real) work of art.

In this first book in the series, Simpson has been hired by a London merchant bank to buy art to bolster the investment portfolios of its extremely wealthy clients. The first painting he sees won't make anyone rich, but for some reason within hours of viewing this painting, the artwork is stolen and the dealer is killed. Simpson is intrigued and does a little poking around, but he's no sleuth and soon gives up. It's not until he goes to Brazil on unrelated business that he finds out what happened in that back room in Somers Town.

Sometimes timing is all in reading. A book that doesn't capture your attention when you're distracted or not feeling well may leave you enraptured if you read it at another time.  I just couldn't sink into this book. As you can tell by the first sentence that I shared above, Malcolm's style in this first book is a bit meandering. Due to my health, I found myself nodding off, dropping the book, waking up, finding my place, starting over, nodding off.... Sadly, I just couldn't get my mind into it and couldn't finish it.

Don't let my feeble-mindedness put you off if you're in the mood for a mystery set in the art world. Your timing can definitely be better than mine!

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Every Bitter Thing by Leighton Gage

Title: Every Bitter Thing
Author: Leighton Gage
ISBN: 9781569478455
Publisher: Soho Crime, 2010
Hardcover, 288 pages
Genre: Police Procedural, #4 Chief Inspector Mario Silva mystery
Rating: B+
Source: the author

First Line: It was Norma Palhares who first steered her new husband toward the offshore oil platforms.

When the son of the Foreign Minister of Venezuela is found dead in his apartment in Brasilia, Chief Inspector Mario Silva of the Federal Police is brought in to investigate. As he and his men work deeper into the case, Silva discovers that there have been a series of murders throughout Brazil that all have the same MO, and the victims were all passengers on the same flight from Miami to São Paulo. What motive could possibly link all these murders?

I've said this before, but a little repetition never hurts: Leighton Gage writes  my top discovery series of 2010. It is rare to find a crime fiction series that's imbued with such a sense of place, a wonderful cast of characters, and involving plots.

In Every Bitter Thing, it is nice to be out of fishy smelling Manaus, deep in the Amazon basin, and into the cities of São Paulo and Brasilia. The plot takes charge of this fourth book, and although I did miss the oftentimes humorous interactions between Silva and his team, the emphasis on the lives of the victims and the identity of the killer was engrossing.

The only unpleasant thing about my reading experience is that I am now caught up with this series and have to wait impatiently for the next one to be published. Oh well....

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Dying Gasp by Leighton Gage

Title: Dying Gasp
Author: Leighton Gage
ISBN: 9781569476130
Publisher: Soho Crime, 2010
Hardcover, 336 pages
Genre: Police Procedural, #3 Chief Inspector Mario Silva mystery
Rating: A
Source: contest prize

First Line: The bomb aboard the number nine tram claimed seventeen lives.

Normally a missing teenage girl doesn't raise many eyebrows, but when she's the granddaughter of a prominent politician, Chief Inspector Mario Silva's ambitious boss is practically jumping through hoops to earn Brownie points and keep the man happy.

The girl's disappearance is tied to kidnapping and the extremely lucrative international trade in underage girls, prostitution, and snuff films. Her trail leads Silva and his men to Manaus, deep in the Amazon basin in one of Brazil's poorest provinces. While the teenager fights against her fate, Silva and his team tries to find her before it's too late.

I am a mystery series junkie; I have no clue how many mystery series I follow, and the number would probably shock me. One thing I do know is that, since I began reading the Chief Inspector Mario Silva series, it has become one of my top ten favorites.

Gage's novels have introduced me to a part of the world about which I was ignorant, knowing more about its early history than what is going on there now. A strong sense of place is always present in my favorite series. Few writers capture this as well as Leighton Gage.

I am also a character-driven reader, and characters abound in these books, from Silva's bumbling boss, to Silva's crack team of investigators (especially Arnaldo whom I depend upon for much needed comic relief), to Silva himself-- a man who has no illusions about the corrupt system in which he works.

A strong point in Dying Gasp for me was the missing girl, Marta Malan. At first glance, she's a typical rich girl who believes she's just that much better than everyone else, but as she fights her captors in order to stay alive, my contempt for her underwent a sea change.

One of the characters from Buried Strangers appears in this third book in the series. An evil person with absolutely no concept of right or wrong, this character made my skin crawl, and her death seemed strangely anti-climactic in Dying Gasp. However, it did serve as a vivid contrast to young Marta's struggles.

I am going to be very sad when I've caught up with this series. What a drag, waiting for each new one to be published!

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Black Rain by Graham Brown

Title: Black Rain
Author: Graham Brown
ISBN: 9780553592412
Publisher: Dell, 2010
Mass Market Paperback, 528 pages
Genre: Thriller; #1 Danielle Laidlaw
Rating: B
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: The darkness of the jungle loomed above, its dense, tangled layers spreading like a circus tent from the towering pillars of massive trees.

When I read that Black Sun, the second Graham Brown thriller featuring Danielle Laidlaw, was out at the end of August, I thought I remembered the first sitting on my shelves. I took a look and was relieved that my memory was in proper working order for the moment. In no time at all, I was deep in the Amazon with Danielle in Black Rain.

Danielle Laidlaw is an investigator for a covert branch of the National Research Institute. She takes a team deep into the Amazon rain forest to discover the source of radioactive crystals, and to search for an ancient Mayan city. This puts Danielle and her group directly in the path of ruthless billionaire Richard Kaufman-- as well as an extremely hostile tribe of natives and violent man-eating creatures. Within days, Danielle is faced with choosing between the mission objective or the lives of her team and herself.

Even though I'm normally a character-driven reader, there are times when I want to read something fast and fun. Black Rain had the added bonus of being deep in the Amazon dealing with Mayan mythology, both of which interest me.

The plot is fast-paced and interesting, and even though thrillers are not known for characterization, one of them stood out in this novel. McCarter, a member of Laidlaw's team, behaved in a smug, self-righteous manner throughout most of the book, but when the chips were down about as far as they could go, he received two thumbs up from me. I'm just not used to being favorably impressed by characters in a thriller, and this means that I'm going to be looking for Graham Brown's Black Sun for my next Mayan mythology and Amazon rain forest fix. If you're in the mood for something fast, fun, interesting, and even scary at times, I suggest you give Graham Brown a try, too.

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Buried Strangers by Leighton Gage

Title: Buried Strangers
Author: Leighton Gage
ISBN: 9781569476147
Publisher: Soho Crime, 2009
Paperback, 308 pages
Genre: Police Procedural, #2 Chief Inspector Mario Silva mystery
Rating: A
Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen.

First Line: "Somewhere around here," Hans said, swinging his flashlight beam from the dark tunnel in front of them toward the thick wall of vegetation on the right.

When Herbert the Escape Artist (AKA an Old English Sheepdog) proudly brings back a human bone and waits for praise, the police are called instead. There, in a rain forest twenty kilometers from São Paulo, police find a clandestine cemetery. And another. The corpses of hundreds of human beings-- often interred in family groups-- have been secretly buried.

This is a case that Chief Inspector Mario Silva can become very passionate about, since he lost his only child to leukemia when his son was eight years old. But there's a problem named Nelson Sampaio who just so happens to be Silva's boss. Sampaio is one of those political appointees with his eye on promotion, and he is absolutely convinced that another politico is sabotaging him. To Sampaio, nothing is more important than Silva digging up the dirt on his nemesis. Does this bother Silva? No. One of the delights of this series has turned out to be watching the machinations of Silva as he circumvents the human obstacles in his way in order to do what must be done.

Although the first book in the series, the excellent Blood of the Wicked was a bit heavy-handed with torture, this second book deals more with the interactions between the characters and is laced with humor. As Silva and his team slowly piece together tiny clues, the reason for the mass graves becomes horrifyingly clear.The extra dashes of humor were welcome intervals between
corrupt cops and politicians and secret cemeteries.

With just two books, this series has become one of my favorites because of the strength of its characters, its strong sense of place, its powerful plots... and its ability, not only to educate me about an unfamiliar part of the world, but to leave me with a sense of outrage over injustice. What am I outraged over? I don't want to say very much because I don't believe in spoiling the plot for people who haven't read the book. I'll just say that cattle in Brazil have more documentation than many of its two-legged citizens.

Entertaining, educational, emotional. Haven't read a book written by Leighton Gage?

Why?

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Blood of the Wicked by Leighton Gage

Title: Blood of the Wicked
Author: Leighton Gage
ISBN: 9781569475355, Soho Press, 2008
Genre: Police Procedural, #1 Chief Inspector Mario Silva mystery
Rating: A+
Source: The Poisoned Pen

First Line: Something took the helicopter and shook it like a jackal worrying a carcass.

Chief Inspector Mario Silva of the Federal Police is called upon to travel to remote Cascatas to investigate the assassination of a bishop. When he arrives, he finds himself in a veritable vipers' nest of crime and corruption: the bishop's assassination, the disappearance of a wealthy landowner's son, the continuing conflict between the landowners and the Landless Workers League, the deaths of homeless street children, drugs... the list seems endless. With Colonel Ferraz of the State Police in Cascatas firmly against Silva, will the inspector be able to solve any of the crimes in this remote area of Brazil?

I was bowled over by this book. First and foremost, what impressed me was how thoroughly Gage immersed me in modern Brazil. Until picking up Blood of the Wicked, the books I'd read about this country centered on a bit of colonial history, and lots of Amazonian exploration. In reading about present-day Brazil, I became acquainted with favelas (shantytowns), with the fact that dead street children are referred to as "hams", with the age-old struggle between the Haves and the Have Nots, and with a degree of police corruption that made me ill.

Although the book is excellent armchair travel, it had to be coupled with believable characters and a strong story line to get this sort of reaction from me. Chief Inspector Mario Silva is a man of principle. As a young man facing total police disinterest in finding the men responsible for the deaths of his parents, Silva took the investigation-- and the law-- into his own hands. This serves a dual purpose. The reader does become unsure of Silva's reactions and methods in Cascatas, but there is also the belief that he will fight for justice in the face of any amount of corruption.

Another character stands head and shoulders above all others: State Police Colonel Ferraz. He literally became a man I loved to hate, and I couldn't wait to see what Silva had in store for him.

Blood of the Wicked can be very brutal-- murder, torture, the corruption of absolute power, the desperation of poverty-- but the depiction of the country and the dedication of Chief Inspector Mario Silva kept me mesmerized to the final page.