J. C. Patrick

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The Missing Head Of Damasceno Monteiro

J. C. Patrick; Antonio Tabucchi

Synopsis:
Antonio Tabucchi's new novel "The Missing Head" continues the experiment so successfully begun with his "Pereira Declares" (New Directions, 1994)--a European best-seller and winner of the prestigious Aristeon European Literature Prize in 1997. Tabucchi has now written a thriller, but one with a subtle intellectual depth not usual in that genre. "The Missing Head" intriguingly reflects on current social issues--crime, police corruption, yellow journalism, and the courts--both of the law and of public opinion. Tabucchi hooks the reader on page one of this book and the story advances with electric and unflagging suspense. A gypsy discovers a headless body; Firmino, a young journalist who writes for a scandal-sheet, takes up the case; the headless corpse turns out to be that of one Domasceno Monteiro--an employee at an important-export company who, having stumbled upon a heroin smuggling ring at his work, has stolen a drug shipment; and, the police are suppressing evidence--all the stuff of familiar daily news, here made riveting in the hands of a rare and brilliant writer.

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