[.ca] The Silence of the Rain: An Inspector Espinosa Mystery (ISBN 0312421184)

worse than bad:
I picked up this book only because, in an otherwise informative article on Raymond Carver, a semi-respected reviewer (who has since lost my respect) has mentioned it as just one more work influenced by the great American original. Imagine my disappointment, then, on finding on my table a half-baked novel whose characters are flatter than yesterday's Coke and whose story line is about as engaging as the dog-eared menu in a zero-star diner. Indeed, I probably care more about this imaginary menu, grease- and ketchup-stained it might be, than the fate of any of the characters in the novel. Frankly, I don't understand why a U.S. publisher, and a literary one at that, would bother with this kind of lowly trash: the writing can't even be called workaday--it's simply beneath contempt. Any talented tenth-grader could've written better. For that matter, I can't quite understand why a highly regarded Brazilian publisher (Companhia Das Letras) would publish such an abomination either. It's possible that something has been lost in translation, but I rather doubt this, since Garcia-Roza, to judge by this book at least, has come up with a prose style that would make the dumbest subject-verb-object writing look Proustian by comparison. Instead of Raymond Chandler, a more appropriate point of reference might be Raymond Carver at his absolute worst--the sort of thing he, Carver, would no doubt have thrown into the wastebasket without a single pang of remorse. The book is without art, without wit, without life, without any redeeming quality I can think of (even the cover art is mediocre).

Promising Start to a Rio Trilogy:
Popular Brazilian author Garcia-Roza wrote a trilogy of crime novels in the latter part of the '90s, and this is the first of them to appear in English. Unlike another Brazilian crime novel of that time, Patricia Melo's "The Killer", this book doesn't take a hard-boiled approach, but is a carefully crafted procedural. With plenty of social commentary mixed in, the book reads somewhat like one of Mario Vargas Llosa's crime fictions such as "Who Killed Palamino Molero" or "The Green House". The novel starts by presenting the suicide of a rich executive in Rio de Janerio, and in Hitchcockian fashion allows the reader to know a great deal more than the hero for most of the book. That hero is a rather nebbish Detective Inspector, who for most of the book treats the case as a murder since someone made off with the gun used in the suicide, the note, and more. As in much noir, several smalltime people get accidentally mixed up in the matter and further deaths ensue, making it all rather confusing for the Inspector. He's a likable loner, a kindred spirit of John Harvey's Nottingham Inspector Charlie Resnick, or Sicilian Inspector Montalbano of Andrea Camilleri's series ("The Shape of Water"). There are some rather curious aspects to the story, for example, despite Rio's notorious murder rate, this homicide Detective mostly adheres to strict 9-5, Monday-Friday hours, working only a single case at a time. And in the book's sole instance of awkward author contrivance, his network of informers just happens to have information on a key gun sale-this in a city where guns change hands like pocket change. The setting is fairly interesting, rain-slicked white middle-class Rio neighborhoods which are very cosmopolitan and European (I'm not sure why other reviewers insist on using the word "sultry" to describe the setting). Rio's favelas (shantytowns) are only seen in the distance. It's always a treat to read crime fiction from other countries, and this is no exception. Garcia-Roza's trilogy kicks off with an intriguing plot, a likable hero, and great promise.

Lost in Translation?:
Luis Alfredo Garcia-Roza's Brazilian police detective, Inspector Espinosa, is more likely to haunt a bookstore than to haunt the shadows and alleyways of Rio. He's no winner with the ladies and his fellow cops ignore him. And given that he believes an obvious suicide is murder (passing on routine forensics), he's also as sharp as a sack of ratos molhados. The "Silence of the Rain" was a huge hit when it came out in Brazil. And why not? The author is well known in his native land and he populates his novel with all the classic detective elements: Sex, death, fear, and the mystery of a businessman shot in the head, the tortured body of the businessman's secretary's mother, the missing secretary, and a lowlife who happened to stumble into a money deal bigger than he realized. There's the deceased's sensuous wife, her potential suitor, the suitor's aerobic instructor girlfriend, and the dead man's business partner--all tangled up and knotty to sort out. None of it makes any sense to Espinosa. Unfortunately, none of it makes much sense to us readers, either. This is an oddly written mystery novel. It starts and ends with an omniscient narrator, but in the middle it switches to Espinosa's first person point of view. Switching POV is necessary here since Garcia-Roza gives us almost no character detail for his protagonist in the first part of the book. This leaves readers with no one to care about--a major error. Switching back to omniscient later seems like an out, as if the author could not fill in the rest of the story through Espinosa's eyes. Even given the POV issues, the story starts promisingly with a detailed look at the suicide of the businessman, so we know--a la "Columbo"--what Espinosa does not. Fair enough. Yet these elements only work well if the ultimate villain in the story is not telegraphed. Here, Garcia-Roza shows his hand so blatantly that the only suspense left is how the villain is dispatched. And I'll go on record as saying that the demise is as laughable as it is sorry. There is nothing worse than a writer bailing on the ending, except perhaps switching the POV, throwing the villain in our laps, and THEN bailing on the ending. Considering the acclaim for "The Silence of the Rain," the first in the Espinosa series to reach our shores, I had high hopes. Sadly, this novel does not make me want to delve more into the affairs of the bookish detective.

An easy enjoyable read:
I agree with some of the comments made by the previous review. The logic of the story defeated me at times. I wasn't sure what I was reading. This is not Raymond Carver, Chandler or any other Raymond. The description of the life of a police man working in Rio seems strangely at odds with the reality of the life in that big city, I've been there and I can't imagine that a cop in Rio with that many years service under his belt could still be so naive. But, I was drawn to the character of Espinosa, a man who is also strangely at odds with his profession as a cop. He likes to read and that is what makes him different of course - you know - cop with an intellect. I have read a few novels translated from Brazilian portuguese and I honestly don't think the language translates very well. Something is lost and it was lost here. The ending was implausible but I'll definately be reading the next in the series. Go figure!

A very good off-beat detective story:
This mystery, in which Espinosa slogs his way through what seems to be a murder and turns out to be a suicide, is a refreshing change from the usual "kick 'em in the belly" type of tough-guy thriller. Espinosa is a loner and a philosopher who loves books and is generally misunderstood by his colleagues. He has a talent for encountering numerous lowlifes, some on the fringes of society. These characters and the contradictions in various clues make a good story, but what I liked best was the little turns of phrase that the author uses to describe the action and characters. He is reminiscent of Raymond Chandler in this respect, and, also like Chandler, evokes a time and place. We look forward to others by this author.