L. A. García-Roza (1936–2020)

What a lovely puzzle this is.

Aldo Bruno, architect, and his wife Camila, psychotherapist, attend a dinner party in a fancy part of Rio de Janeiro. When they have to leave they encounter rain, so Camila stays inside while Aldo runs for the car, parked in a cul-de-sac at the end of the street.

Later, they learn that a homeless man had been shot in that location, and Aldo was one of two persons from the party who might have seen what happened.

Homeless people rarely are seen in this rich enclave, show more and this one was particularly memorable because he had only one leg and got around with crutches. He would have a time climbing the steep hill to get where he was found.

Inspector Espinosa is on the case. He wonders why the dead man was there in the first place, and why anyone would want to kill him. He interviews anyone who was in a position to offer any information, including Aldo Bruno and his wife.

Bruno confesses to his wife the next day that his memory blanked out, and he did not remember what he did from the time he left the dinner party until he picked her up to go home. It worries him because it wasn't the first time he had memory gaps. Camila isn't worried, suggests that this happens to everyone from time to time. But Aldo does worry.

Worse, Aldo does not want to admit his memory loss to anyone else, so he makes up a story to tell the police. A plausible and possibly true story but he just doesn't remember it.

Aldo's office focuses on interior design rather than architecture. He has an assistant and a couple of interns, and they keep busy. Camila's practice is successful as well, although she comes from money and thus it is likely that neither actually has to work.

As Aldo grapples with his memory and Espinosa struggles with the little he is able to glean from visitors, residents, and workers in the area, there is another death. This one hits far closer to home for Aldo and he is swimming in confusion.

Full of intrigue and interesting twists, I enjoyed it. I did guess one of the critical aspects of the puzzle but that did not prevent me from enjoying the trip. 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

The first murder, that of a one-legged apparently homeless man, intrigues Detective Espinosa because it takes place in a district he knows well, close to where he grew up. The main suspects are two men who are collecting their parked cars in heavy rain after a dinner party. Espinosa prefers one over the other as a suspect but for a long time the case goes nowhere. Much of the investigation relates to how the victim got to the site of the murder, which is at the top of a very steep hill, and show more why he was there.

During part 2 of the story Espinosa and his team carry out a constant investigation of his preferred suspect, turning up at his place of work to check minor details of his story, or talking to his wife. We see most of the story through the eyes of this suspect, raising the question of how reliable a witness he really is. He claims to his wife that there are large parts of the evening that he doesn't remember. Espinosa ramps up the psychological pressure.

In places the author's style reminds me of Simenon and that is probably why I liked it so much.

Some readers will find the story's climax a bit too open-ended and inconclusive. show less

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