Inspector Espinosa Mysteries Series

The second in the acclaimed Brazilian series featuring Inspector Espinosa, the detective hailed by critics for "his existential sensibility, his exotic beat, and his literary merit" (San Francisco Chronicle) A retired policeman spends a typically alcohol-filled evening with his girlfriend, a prostitute. When he wakes up the next morning, his wallet and car key are missing, his girlfriend has been murdered, and he can remember none of the events of the previous night. Called in to investigate is Inspector Espinosa, veteran detective and friend of the ex-cop. It's a seemingly open-and-shut case, but Espinosa is convinced there's more here than meets the eye, and when other bodies begin turning up, he finds himself not only racing after a killer but falling in love. The first Espinosa mystery, The Silence of the Rain, won over American audiences with its steamy evocation of exotic Rio de Janeiro, its singular narrative approach, and, above all, its highly appealing protagonist. In December Heat, the second in this atmospheric, erotic series, Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza once again delivers a story as unusual as it is complex, with a resolution sure to elude—and ultimately delight—even the most discerning crime readers.

A Brazilian bestseller, this sophisticated story of murder, sex, and corruption introduces a riveting new crime series. In a parking garage in the center of Rio de Janeiro, corporate executive Ricardo Carvalho is found dead in his car, a bullet in his head. It appears that he has been robbed and murdered. But the clues are few. The gun and his briefcase are nowhere to be found -- just the kind of case that is always assigned to Inspector Espinosa. Not your typical detective, the world-weary Espinosa has the mind of a philosopher, the heart of a romantic, and enough experience to realize that things are rarely as they first seem. As Espinosa attempts to unravel the mystery of what really happened to Carvalho and his secretary, Rose, who disappeared shortly afterward, he discovers that the businessman had recently taken out a million-dollar life insurance policy. And there's another complication: Espinosa's attraction to Carvalho's beautiful widow, who is also one of the prime suspects. When two more bodies turn up, Espinosa is forced to shift the investigation into high gear before anyone else becomes a casualty. Hurtling to a surprising and satisfying conclusion, The Silence of the Rain is an intelligent, unconventional detective novel with a distinctly Latin American flavor and a colorful, exciting locale. In Espinosa, America is about to meet an irresistible new sleuth.

A young man predicts a murder and identifies the perpetrator—himself—in this third entry in the critically acclaimed Brazilian crime series When a terrified young man arrives at the station with a bizarre story, Chief Espinosa of the Copacabana precinct is more than happy to set aside his paperwork. A psychic has predicted that the man would commit a murder, it seems, and the prediction has become fact in the young man's mind. It's a case more appropriate for a psychiatrist or philosopher, but Espinosa rises to the challenge and slowly enters the web of this psychologically conflicted man. As the southwesterly wind—always a sign of dramatic change—begins to blow, what at first seems like paranoia becomes brutal reality. Two violent murders occur, and their only link is the lonely, clever man who had sought Espinosa out a few days earlier for help. In Southwesterly Wind, the third in this atmospheric, erotic series featuring the inimitable Inspector Espinosa, Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza once again "breathes fresh air into the crime novel genre" (Los Angeles Times).

A ruthless group of corrupt cops is playing a lethal game of cat and mouse in the latest installment in the seductive bestselling Brazilian crime series Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro. Three policemen have been killed over the course of a few days. They were mediocre cops, and their deaths have a lot in common: they were eliminated by a cold-blooded assassin, who leaves no trace and likes to fire at point-blank range. Immediately the police world is thrown into turmoil. Who would risk running around the city killing cops, even unpopular ones? People involved in drug trafficking? Other policemen? Espinosa, chief of the 12th Precinct, doesn't have much to go on. And when the body of a woman connected to one of the dead cops is found on the sidewalk below her apartment window, things get even more complicated, as a reputed "witness"-the wife of a high-ranking government official--becomes obsessed with the case, and with Espinosa. Nothing is quite as it first appears as Espinosa finds himself in his old haunts of Leme and Copacabana, and in the all-too-familiar murky terrain of corruption, secret lives, greed, and fear.

A Rio de Janeiro Thriller When his daughter disappears and a patient emerges as the prime suspect, a troubled psychiatrist comes to Espinosa for help, in the fifth novel in the beguiling Brazilian crime series A hospital psychiatrist feels he's being stalked by a young patient. For as long as possible, he convinces himself that the young man is harmless, but when the doctor's daughter disappears and the patient goes missing, too, he calls on Espinosa for help. Soon after, the patient turns up dead. With his death begins a chain of other deaths, each more mysterious than the one that preceded it, each seemingly linked to the doctor and his former patient. As Espinosa learns more about the doctor's history, it becomes harder to discern the stalker from the stalked, reality from fantasy, and the sane from the diabolical. In this installment of the "seductive, fascinating" (The New York Times Book Review) series, the sultry maze of Rio de Janeiro's streets conspires against Espinosa, confounding his judgment, stymieing his search, and, somewhere, concealing a murderer.

The murder of an anonymous beggar on a cobblestone street in the wealthy precincts of Copacabana haunts Inspector Espinosa in this "beguiling" series (The New York Times Book Review) With no witnesses and no weapon, it seems like the case of the one-legged homeless man found lying in a cul-de-sac on São João Hill, shot through the heart, will remain unsolved. But Chief Inspector Espinosa can't shake thoughts of the hapless victim—who would target a penniless man who posed no physical threat? Focusing his incisive mind and characteristically unhurried inquiry on a group of affluent guests who dined at a nearby mansion on the stormy night of the murder, Espinosa carefully interrogates his way into the lives of his suspects, exposing lies, cover-ups—and further mysteries. When the body of a prominent young urbanite is discovered in a scandalous state of undress, Espinosa must find the unlikely connections between two murders with no apparent witnesses or motive. Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza turns up the heat in this novel, supplementing his seductive prose with psychological twists and steamy secrets that lead to the unexpected climax.

Inspector Espinosa unwittingly ignites the obsessions of a menacing misanthrope in the latest from the highly acclaimed mystery author An elderly lady approaches the front desk at the Twelfth Precinct in Copacabana and demands to speak with the chief. Tired after a long day, she leaves without further explanation, promising to return. Two hours later, Doña Laureta is dead, and witnesses' accounts vary as to whether she was pushed or fell in front of the bus that killed her on one of the busiest avenues in the city. Veteran police chief inspector Espinosa quickly pinpoints a suspect in Hugo Breno, an unassuming bank teller whose solitary existence takes on a sinister cast as he shadows the inspector's movements across the city. Meanwhile Espinosa discovers an unsettling connection from the past between himself and Breno, and must turn his trademark psychological inquiry inward to determine how murky memories of a murder from long ago might play into Doña Laureta's untimely passing. Chilling and ultimately heart-stopping, Alone in the Crowd presents Espinosa as we have never seen him before, the man of detached expertise and calm self-assurance entangled in a mystery where reason alone will not suffice.