"Sir, it's almost impossible to report everyone who's on the take," one of the investigators explains it to his chief. "They just think it's part of their pay. They look at bribes like a legitimate bonus."
The chief is Inspector Espinoza. And he receives this bit of disturbing information from one of his team investigating the recent murder of three Rio police officers and their mistresses.
A Window in Copacabana is the fourth in a series featuring Espinoza, a bookish loner, age forty-two, a tall, lean man with an analytic mind and romantic heart, who, like Luis Alfredo Garcia-Roza, has spent his entire life in the city of Rio de Janeiro.
I'm making my way through all of the Brazilian author's novels, each a gripping page-turner, and the most important thing I can say about Window is it takes the Bolo de Milho (a traditional Brazilian cake). Wow! To call this book a page-turner is understatement. I literally couldn't stop reading - the story is that enthralling.
With the exception of Welber, Espinosa's young assistant, everyone both in and out of the Rio police force is a suspect. At one point, Espinosa even has Welber follow him up and down the streets of Rio to see if the youthful, perceptive detective can spot anyone else on his tail.
Ah, Rio. One of the great delights in reading Garcia-Roza is the way the samba beat and exuberance of Rio de Janeiro exude their vital presence on every page. “The station was five blocks down the Avenida Atlântica and two to the right, up Hilário de Gouveia. Whenever possible, Espinosa preferred to take the Avenida Atlântica. The soft breeze kept the sea calm, with small waves, and seagulls flew in groups toward the Cagarras Islands.”
I've come to love the way Garcia-Roza includes interesting, fully developed characters that seem to burst out on the page. One sexy, vivacious lady deserves a special call-out: Serena, the wife of a high-ranking government official, is pulled into the unfolding drama when, standing at the window of her apartment on the tenth floor, an apartment on the corner of Avenida Atlântica, she notices a commotion in the apartment across the street, less than ten yards away. A woman is gesticulating and pacing across the room. The woman is talking to someone, but Serina can't make out what the woman might be saying. Suddenly, she sees a purse fly out the window. She looks down on the street in an attempt to locate the purse. “She was still trying to discern the purse when a bigger object flew through her visual field, falling to the sidewalk with an impact and a noise that were unmistakably even to someone who had never seen anybody leap off a high building. Serena, horrified, stared at the woman's body on the sidewalk, arms and legs in positions that reminded her of a broken doll.” Serina becomes obsessed with what she has witnessed. And not long thereafter, Serina becomes obsessed – with Espinosa.
The inclusion of Serina underscores a distinctive feature of Garcia-Roza fiction: the presence of the erotic and the sensual. As to how it will all play out in A Window in Copacabana is for each reader to discover. If I was still using the star system, this sizzling thriller deserves ten stars.
Brazilian author Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza, 1936-2020
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