Blowing My Horn

Once a year, here on Murder is Everywhere, each of us gets to blow their horn.

It’s when we launch a new book.

Some lucky few, like Tim, get to do even more horn-blowing, because they’re productive as hell.

Me? No. Just one book a year.

And guess what?

This year, 2012, no new book.

Not in North America anyway.

A Vine in the Blood was launched in December of 2011.

But Perfect Hatred won’t be hitting the bookstores until February of 2013.

There are good reasons for this, which I won’t bore you with.

But, in compensation, and because they are nice people (and savvy marketers) the good folks at Soho are throwing me a very meaty bone. (Arf!)

On the fourth of September, they re-published my first-in-series, Blood of the Wicked – in a special, low-priced, trade paperback edition.

And it's currently making its presence felt in bookstores all over North America.
And quite a few in the UK as well.

Here’s what it looks like:

Most of you, kind regular visitors to Murder is Everywhere, have read the book already, right?

Good. You can stop reading now. Please catch up with me next week when I’ll have something to write about that will interest you.

Now, for those few of you who are left, here’s the pitch:

In a recent review, commenting on all of my currently published books, the Wall Street Journal opined that they have “all the step-by-step excitement of a world-class procedural series”.

The New York Times called Blood of the Wicked “top-notch” and “entirely absorbing”.

Library Journal gave it a star.

The Boston Globe found it “compelling”.

The Toronto Globe and Mail referred to it as “masterful”.         

And Booklist, in another starred review, called my Chief Inspector Silva “South America’s Kurt Wallander”.

If you live in North America, your local, independent mystery bookstore will surely have it.
If you aren't lucky enough to have one of those fine establishments near you, you can get it at Barnes and Noble.

To find where, near you, go here: http://tinyurl.com/97m6m4j

Then, under the orange button that says ADD TO BAG, click on the link that says PICK UP IN STORE.
It will prompt you to enter your zip code.
And locate the nearest shop that stocks it.

End of pitch.
Thanks for your time.

Leighton - Monday

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Last week, in a gesture reminiscent of the raising of the American flag over Mount Suribachi, the Brazilian forces of law and order signaled their victory over the drug lords by displaying a national flag on the heights above the Favela do Alemão in Rio de Janeiro.

More than forty tons of marijuana and three hundred kilograms of cocaine were confiscated in the operation.

Hundreds of weapons were apprehended.

Dozens of felons arrested.

The ramshackle shantytown now enjoys a degree of peace and tranquility that no resident under the age of ten has ever known.

To achieve the result, eight hundred members of the military joined with more than two-thousand cops, civil, military and federal to pull off the highly-successful operation. But, as always seems to be the case, there were a few rotten apples in the barrel.

Someone apparently tipped-off many of the gang leaders, who were caught on videotape by Brazil’s major television network as they escaped over a back road that bordered the favela.

Worse: Many residents fled during the operation and returned to find their homes broken into. Not by the bandits, but by the police.

Police corruption, as the above cartoon illustrates, is endemic. The cop is telling himself, you’re under arrest.

Indeed, the situation is so bad in some areas that it’s hard to distinguish between the cops and the criminals. In this one, the kid looks one way and says, “Look, Mom, a crook.” Then he looks the other way: “Look, Mom, a cop.” And when he bursts into tears: “Who can help us now?” 

Here are a few examples of the kind of stuff that took place in Rio during the sweep:

From longtime resident Daise dos Santos, the cops stole seven bottles of imported perfume. She’d planned to sell them to pay her credit card bill.

They nicked a forty-two inch TV, and two-hundred Reais in cash, from Carlos Lopes da Silva.
They swiped a television, a notebook computer and her daughter’s basketball uniform from Isabel dos Santos.
And the pastor, Ronai de Almeida Lima Braga Júnior, lost thirty-one thousand-five hundred Reais (about eighteen-thousand-seven hundred U.S. dollars) in church funds. The perpetrators in that case were apparently some civil cops. A neighbor reported them breaking-down the front door of Ronai’s home.
The military police has dispatched a mobile unit to the region, and residents have been invited to drop in and file complaints against the police.

A full and detailed investigation of each case has been promised.

Proof, of course, is hard to come by.

So the betting is that there won’t be many arrests.

Or that much of what has been stolen will ever be recovered.

Leighton - Monday