Every Bitter Thing

“To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.” Proverbs 27:7

Jonas Palhares is sure that he is living in the safest place he could possibly find. After trying some other areas of Rio, Jonas settled on an apartment near the beaches, the beaches to which tourists flocked. Increased police presence and a building with a doorman who would never let anyone in without the permission of a resident, makes Jonas feel very safe. It also makes him careless. When his doorbell rings, Jonas believes it is his girlfriend. It isn’t and Jonas dies.

When Juan Rivas, the son of the foreign minister of Venezuela, is killed, the problem created by the killing becomes a problem for Mario Silva and his team. The problem in the Rivas killing is the show more sexual orientation of the victim. It is a problem for Silva because, although the method of killing Rivas is the same as that used in the Palhares murder, Palhares wasn’t gay. Jorge Rivas wants the killer of his son found now, and when a detective, not one of Silva’s, abruptly announces that he has solved the case in minutes, Silva realizes that the detective is an idiot. The suspect is an older man who lives one floor below Juan. This suspect also has an on going relationship with Jorge Rivas; neither father nor son were aware of the other’s sexual proclivities. The Clown, the term Silva uses to identify the leader of Venezuela, is homophobic and Rivas Senior would find himself in a very bad place if The Clown is made aware of the private lives of the Rivas men. Both Jorge and Juan maintain relationships with Tomas Garcia. Jorge even owns both apartments. His first priority is to ensure that The Clown doesn’t learn of his sexual orientation. A gay man murdered by his lover would be an easy solution but Mario knows that an easy solution is rarely a correct solution. Mario is a man willing to turn over every rock to see what scuttles into the light of day. Tomas Garcia isn’t under any rock connected to the Rivas family.

What Mario needs is more likely to be found in the files of the police of Brazil than in anyone’s garden. In little time, Silva discovers that there have been three other murders, all similar in execution. Paulo Cruz is the highly successful author of books on sexuality. Victor Neves is an exporter of leather goods. Joao Girotti has spent much of his life as a guest of the state. He is a thug with convictions for armed robbery, burglary, and auto theft. The five men were first shot in the abdomen and then beaten to death with something like a club. What was the connection? The motive wasn’t sexual jealousy between gays because only Rivas fit that category. Four of the men were successful, leading respectable lives. The fifth victim was unlike the others in every possible way. Silva and his team have to start from the beginning and look at the murders from a different perspective.

Information that Joao Girotti had been drinking with a woman who had not been seen in the bar before suggests that he was not a random victim. The two left together minutes before Girotti was found dead in an alley behind the bar. Then, when the police search Neves apartment, they find a book next to his bed. The bookmark is a boarding pass and the details of the flight match exactly the details of the flight Juan Rives had been on shortly before he died.

It is when the police get a copy of the passenger list in business class on Neves flight that the case opens up. Four of the five men were in that section of the plane. One of the other seven could be the killer. Six of the seven could be the next victims. With the passenger list as a guide, the detectives contact the passengers and crew, ferreting out details that could lead to a motive for the killings.

As more people on the list are killed, the author asks us to look at the things we fear the most. We fear the sudden inexplicable death of a loved one. We fear being caught in circumstances over which we have no control. We fear the randomness of societal mores, that moment when we are confronted by a person whose moral code is defined situation by situation, rather than by the laws of conduct that define a civilized society.

Perhaps the bitter thing becomes sweet when we have someone or something to blame for bringing pain and loss into our lives. Does the soul hunger for justice or for retribution? Does either bring peace? The author presents his characters, especially Mario, as people of their time and place. There is corruption in the Brazilian justice and legal systems. Mario is not immune to the possibilities inherent in doing things his way rather than the right or legal way.

Situation ethics was a hotly debated philosophy in the 60′s and 70′s. Joseph Fletcher built his philosophy on the belief that love is the ultimate law. The love Fletcher espouses is that based on St.Paul’s teachings about “agape”, unconditional and unchanging love for all people. According to Fletcher, there are no absolute laws. The laws that govern society evolved in order to achieve the greatest amount of agape. Laws can be broken if to do so increases the amount of pure love in the world. Summed up, situational ethics breaks down to the simple and popular notion that the end justifies the means.

Joseph Fletcher would have loved EVERY BITTER THING. The reader applauds the resolution, comfortable that all good things come to those who wait for the right moment to act in the spirit of agape.

To say that Leighton Gage gets better with each book suggests that the previous books are less than EVERY BITTER THING. They aren’t. Gage has the ability to use the same central characters in the same setting and write different stories as if everything and everyone is new. There is no danger that this series will become stale show less

This fourth installment of the Mario Silva series is just as good as its predecessors. I am always impressed when authors can maintain a high quality of writing and storytelling but am particularly chuffed when can do so while making some changes to their style. The most noticeable thing about this book for me is that it is fairly light in its tone. There is some violence (and a pretty high body count) but this book does not take readers into quite such dark subject areas as its predecessors and, because all things are relative, it feels almost jaunty by comparison. This sensibility is aided by the ever-present humour which is always particularly evident in the excellent dialogue. I always think I’d rather like to be a member of Mario show more Silva’s team.

It is, in short, the story of a series of brutal murders which at first appear unconnected. But, as any crime reader worth their salt would know, even once a connection has been identified a resolution cannot be had until a lot of investigative shoe leather has been expended. Although it would never be mistaken for a cosy novel EVERY BITTER THING definitely has overtones of the old-fashioned whodunnit with its finite cast of suspects that gets smaller as they are murdered one-by-one.

Although this book doesn’t need to reach into the darker corners of Brazilian society it still exudes the strong sense of place that I have come to expect from this series set in Gage’s adopted home. In particular the political environment and connections and rivalries with neighbouring countries let us know this is not a story taking place in one of crime fiction’s more usual haunts.

In the end I suppose this is a book about justice, or the lack of it, and depicts someone dealing with a complicated kind of grief in a way that is understandable if not justifiable. It’s a rollickingly good story to boot and reminded me anew what a loss the crime genre suffered when Leighton Gage passed away two years ago. I’d recommend this book to all but especially if you’ve been wanting to try the author’s novels but were a bit worried about the level of darkness. This book could easily be read without having read the earlier novels (though I do recommend them too). show less

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 show more 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.... show less

Well written-- definitely gives you insight into Brazilian culture and politics. And I saw a cocktail recipe the following day that included cachaca, so will remember that word at least!
I will go back and read the first in the series-- Silva is a great character, doing his best despite his boss, and I'd like to watch his development to this point.

Gage's books keep getting better and better. The flavor of chaos in Brazilian society comes through brilliantly, while the sincere efforts of most people to function as well as they can keeps a cautiously optimistic tone. Completely absorbing and a great window into Brazil.

This latest installment in the Chief Inspector Mario Silva Investigation Series starts off with a seemingly random collection of murders. The only obvious tie, at first, is the modus operandi -- a gunshot to the gut, followed by a deadly bludgeoning. The victims consist of a divorced petroleum engineer in Rio de Janiero, followed by an author of books on human sexuality (sort of Brazil's answer to Kinsey), then the son of a Venezuelan foreign minister. This last one sets off alarms and brings Brazil's federal police into the picture.

Enter our hero, Chief Inspector Mario Silva, a man of sardonic humor who walks the fine line between dealing with local homicide investigator Walter Pereira and appeasing his own politically-motivated boss, show more Nelson Sampaio, by giving him the "mushroom treatment" ("keep in the dark and feed him shit"). Silva has a dour sidekick, Amaldo Nunes, who doubles as a thorn in Pereira's side. The two men, along with a cast of other colorful characters, doggedly investigate the seemingly unrelated cases that came before in order to get to the bottom of the potentially explosive matter at hand.

Meanwhile, other murders start occurring, revealing a heretofore unseen pattern. Once the pattern is revealed, the detectives end up in a race to find the killer.

Read the entire review at http://thebookgrrl.blogspot.com/2010/11/every-bitter-thing-taste-of-brazilian.ht... show less

Every Bitter Thing is a Mario Silva mystery set in contemporary Brazil. I’m not going to give anything away by outlining the plot, but if you like modern police procedurals with an engaging mysteries, this is the series for you.
Mario Silva is a senior investigator with the Federal Police. His duties take him all over the country, providing interesting insights into Brazilian society, of the sort not usually found in guidebooks.
Gage’s writing is very good, and the story flows right along. My only quibble is that the cover photo has nothing to do with the story, something that the author probably had no control over.