L. A. García-Roza (1936–2020)

At his 29th birthday party Garbiel Alzira is told by a psychic that by his next birthday he will have killed someone. As the date of Gabriel’s birthday looms he becomes increasingly agitated at the thought the prediction will come true and so he begins to trawl Rio de Janeiro looking for the psychic and also asks the police, in the form of Inspector Espinoza in the Copacabana district of the city, to investigate the murder which has yet to be committed. Eventually someone connected to show more Gabriel does die but there’s no evidence that the person was even murdered let alone by Gabriel. Has a crime been committed and if so was Gabriel responsible?

In terms of crime fiction as the English-writing/speaking world knows it, this book would barely register on the genre’s scale, owing far more to the Latin American literary, often poetic narrative style though there are only fleeting glimpses (thankfully for me) of the magical realism that has been prevalent in other Latin American books I’ve read. It doesn’t seem to feel the need to finish all the threads very neatly and much more of the ending is left up to the reader to imagine than would be the case with a more traditional procedural.

The characters are depicted in an observational style but there is depth to them too. When we’re introduced to Gabriel’s widowed mother, who he lives with, she is sitting in her ground floor apartment’s window watching for her son to come down the street as she does every single day and she almost hyperventilates when he is 40 minutes late. She is making herself a cushion to aid in her window-watching and has fashioned herself a ladder to help her climb up to her perch which shows, in words other authors would take two chapters to describe while Garcia-Roza takes about a page, how obsessed she is with her son and how pivotal her relationship with him is to her daily life. Espinoza is almost her exact opposite being fairly cynical, having no close family living in the country and not being remotely interested in domestic pursuits. He is however very funny and does have some nice relationships including one with his 13-year old neighbour who he allows to convince him to acquire a puppy. With all the characters Garcia-Roza kept me wondering whether they are who they appear to be on first acquaintance and I loved that. In fact the least successful person in the book was the central character of Gabriel who was a little more predictable from my point of view than the others.

Southwesterly wind really is quite a simple story but it captivated me so completely I managed to read the last half of it while at the hairdresser’s (one of the few places I normally don’t bother to try and read due to the cacophony created by the blaring radio, shouted conversations and duelling hairdryers). I really had no idea what would come next but I had a rather desperate need to find out and the writing style lent itself to the book being quickly devoured. It is one of those crime fiction novels that I can imagine recommending to all sorts of readers, not just fellow mystery lovers, as it is first and foremost an intriguing yarn about intriguing people. It just happens to have a crime at its core, or the possibility of one at any rate. show less

When a crippled and seemingly homeless man is found shot to death in a cul-de-sac in a wealthy neighborhood Espinosa knew from childhood personal intrigue is added to his professional duty to find the killer. The secluded neighborhood is up a very steep hill so why would a vagrant man with only one leg be there, especially late at night in a torrential downpour? Espinosa likes two men for the crime. Both were collecting their cars in the same cul-de-sac after a dinner party. Both men show more initially lie to Espinosa but one man in particular holds his attention longer. There is something about Aldo. Espinosa and his team slowly turn up the pressure on their prime suspect, showing up at Aldo's work, following him around town, and repeatedly interviewing his therapist wife. Such scrutiny finally reveals Aldo is having an affair with a coworker. Even after Aldo's wife is found murdered Espinosa refuses to consider he has an open and shut case. He shows considerable restraint when he does not eagerly arrest the obvious suspect.
Character development is subtle and substantial all at once. The character of Camilla Bruno was intriguing. Was she seducing patients or not? I wish I had more Garcia-Rozas on my Challenge list. I would have liked to see how Espinoza's personality evolves. His love of books, for example.
One of the best part's of Garcia-Roza's writing is his elegant descriptions of the Rio de Janeiro neighborhoods (Copacabana and Ipanema specifically). I found myself playing around with Google Earth just to see how close he came to matching the true landscapes. show less

Inspector Espinoza of the Rio de Janeiro police department would far rather be browsing bookstore shelves than doing his job, but when he's assigned the case of a man shot in his own car in a parking garage, he reluctantly gets to work. The case ends up far more complicated and far-reaching than he expected and, given the corruption in the police force, there are very few people he can trust; a younger colleague and an old friend who is working as an investigator for the insurance company show more that holds a policy on the dead man. The case takes him through a bunch of suspects and women he is attracted to, from the wife of the victim, to the secretary of the dead man who has disappeared, to a petty street criminal.

This was an interesting but often slow-paced book, as the detective protagonist far prefers rearranging the stacks of books in his apartment or reading his latest acquisition to active investigation. Still, he is dogged and thorough and sharp and I found the setting and unusual viewpoint of the detective refreshing and I will definitely keep an eye out for other books in this Brazilian series. show less

6th in the Inspector Espinosa from Rio de Janeiro series.

An apparently homeless, one-legged beggar is efficiently (one shot to the heart) murdered in an affluent neighborhood in Rio’s 12th District in Copacabana, home to Chief Inspector Espinosa. The killing makes no sense. It was clearly not drug-related, and it is impossible to see the murder as a self-defense against an obviously harmless beggar. Everything about the case is baffling, including the lack of anyone who knew the victim and show more the total lack of witnesses, even though two men from a dinner party in a house close to where the crime was committed claim to have seen nothing.

Thus begins the latest in Garcia-Roza’s superb series. The protagonist, Inspector Espinosa, is not your standard hard-boiled detective; unusual for a Brasilian, he is bookish, as well as being somewhat dreamy, eccentric (not unusual in a Brasilian!). The writing and, importantly, the translation are excellent; the plot is taut and unpredictable. The characters are real and their environment--the Copacabana district--is vibrantly alive. I have spent a great deal of time in Brasil but have never visited Rio. Until I started reading this series, I never wanted to, either. But Garcia-Roza paints a picture of a real neighborhood with interesting people—not the Copacabana of tourists, but the one of cariocas, as the residents of Rio are known.

So far, Garcia-Roza does not seem to write to a formula. All of his books have been different. Certainly this book is vastly different from his previous, mind-bending thriller, Pursuit. But, as with all the others, Blackout is a real page-turner, as the tension and surprises mount to an excellent denouement.

Highly recommended. show less