Blood of the Wicked: Leighton Gage

I have stated often at this blog that I am partial to police procedurals. Blood of the Wicked (2008) by Leighton Gage is a great example of that genre. It is a police procedural with a difference because it is set in Brazil and the police authorities are structured differently in Brazil than here in the US, or so it seems to me. There is a Federal group (Brazilian Federal Police) and State Police. I suppose that could correspond to the FBI and local police authorities in the US, but the Federal Police don't seem to have jurisdiction over the state in this book. It made for a complex interaction between the protagonist, Chief Inspector Mario Silva of the federal branch, and the Colonel in charge of the state police in the remote town of Cascatas do Pontal.

Silva has been dispatched to Cascatas do Pontal because a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church has been assassinated. Dom Felipe Antunes, Bishop of Presidente Vargas, was in the town to consecrate a church. The Pope has called the Presidente, and he has called Silva's boss, who wants the situation taken care of quickly.

Silva brings his team, Delegado Hector Costa and Agente Arnaldo Nunes. Hector is his nephew and all three of them work well together. There are plenty of suspects, a lot of bodies piling up, and corruption in the legal system working against any progress towards a solution.

In addition to the police procedural aspects, I liked the picture of Brazil and the political and sociological issues in that country. The story is told in a straightforward way; there are not a lot of descriptive passages. Time is spent on fleshing out characters, even the peripheral ones. The back story of how Silva has become a policeman is covered in depth and provides insight into his character.

But the reader should be forewarned that there is a lot of violence and brutality in this book. I felt that the level of violence was warranted, in that the book is describing a very corrupt situation in Brazil. It all seemed realistic, although it was not a comfortable read.

Please see a detailed review of this book by Bill Selnes at Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan. There are some interesting comments from the author on this post.

The author of this book, Leighton Gage, died at the age of 71 in late July. There is a tribute post at the Soho Press website. Gage's wife is Brazilian and they spent part of each year living in Brazil. Blood of the Wicked is the first of the Mario Silva series; there have been five other books published. In January 2014, the seventh book, The Ways of Evil Men, will be published.

The Ways of Evil Men

The Ways of Evil Men