Buried Strangers: A Chief Inspector Mario Silva Investigation - Hardcover

Gage, Leighton

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1569475148 ISBN 13: 9781569475140

Publisher: Soho Crime, 2009

Synopsis

Praise for Leighton Gage’s Chief Inspector Mario Silva series:

“Realistic characters that the readers can care about. . . . The ultimate story of the haves vs. the have nots.”—Detroit Free Press

“Gage's compelling novels are good examples of how talented crime writers use the police procedural form to lay bare a society.”—Indianapolis Star

“Gage creates a contemporary tapestry of Brazil . . . [and] builds a compelling foundation for future Silva cases.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Emotionally charged. . . . Vividly evokes a country of political corruptions, startling economic disparity and relentless crime.”—Booklist

A playful dog finds a bone at the outset of this mystery set in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Chief Inspector Mario Silva of the federal police based in Brasilia and his team of investigators, Hector Costa and Arnaldo Nunes, are called in. The bone is human and the investigators soon unearth a clandestine cemetery. Someone has secretly disposed of the bodies of unknown human beings, often interred in family groups. And in Sao Paulo, it turns out, many patrons of a local travel agency have never reached their North American destinations. The motive for these mass murders is completely contemporary and completely appalling.

About this title

About the Author

Leighton Gage has lived in Australia, Europe, and South America and traveled widely in Asia and Africa. He visited Spain in the time of Franco, Portugal in the time of Salazar, South Africa in the time of apartheid, Chile in the time of Pinochet, Argentina in the time of the junta, Prague, East Germany, and Yugoslavia under the Communist yoke. He is fluent in three languages and conversant in three more.
He has a daughter and three grandchildren in Paris, a daughter in The Netherlands, and two more in the United States. He and his wife divide their time between all three of those places and Brazil, her native country.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Gage’s second Mario Silva mystery is an impressive follow-up to an excellent debut (Blood of the Wicked, 2008), with an equally compelling plot, fascinating characters, and a story so real and chilling, it’s hard to image it happening anywhere else but Silva’s Brazil. When a dog accidentally locates a secret burial site in an isolated park on the outskirts of São Paulo, Silva takes on the massive, country-spanning investigation. With the assistance of his officers in São Paulo, competent nephew Hector, dangerously charming Babyface, and some no-nonsense street cops, Silva directs the investigation from Brasilia, uncovering links to an agency reputed to smuggle Brazilians into the U.S. Although the new novel is an old-school police procedural in which procedure, not character development, is the focus of the story, the rapid character sketches are so vivid, and the dialogue between team members so snappy and realistic, it’s hard to imagine that these people are not real cops, working on a real crime. Gage’s talents include not only captivating characters and realistic plots, but also an intensely realized sense of place and an urelentingly fast pace that yanks the reader from beginning to end, unable to stop or pause, just as the cops are unable to take a day off. Silva just may be South America’s Kurt Wallander. --Jessica Moyer

About this edition

• Publisher: Soho Crime
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1569475148
• ISBN 13: 9781569475140
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 312