My third book in the Chief Inspector Mario Silva Series is, I think, one of the best.
In it, I take my readers to the city of Manaus, and confront them with the very real problem of the prostitution of minors in modern Brazil.
Manaus is on the Rio Negro, one of the headwaters of the Amazon and more than a thousand miles from the sea. And yet the river is still so deep that the Statue of Liberty could be submerged in it with room to spare. The rainforest that surrounds it is one of the most fascinating, ecologically diverse places on earth. And have you heard of the Anavilhanas Archipelago? It’s the largest freshwater archipelago in the world, composed of over 400 islands, some of them with white sand beaches - and just a few kilometers west of the town.
But it isn’t just the exuberant nature that makes Manaus interesting. In the early years of the twentieth century, before the Brazilians lost the monopoly on the rubber trade, it was one of the richest cities in the world. And vestiges remain. I think it’s a truly fascinating place. And you can go there with me if you read Dying Gasp.
What is a setting from a published fiction story by another author you would compare this setting to and why are they similar?
Brazil is Portuguese-speaking, and since the language is the culture, and the culture is the language, it can truthfully said to be very different from all of its South American neighbors.
The GNP is greater than that of the next six countries in South America put together Currently, it’s the seventh-ranked economy in the world. It’s not a poor country, as many think, but rather a very rich country with a lot of poor people. It has an automobile industry. It has a computer industry. It sends satellites into space and has the largest fleet of privately-owned helicopters and private jets in the world outside of the United States.
But it is rife with corruption and the income distribution is akin to that of Bangladesh.
It can also be very dangerous. More cops are killed, each year, in the city of Rio de Janeiro than in all of the UK, Canada and the United States combined.
The only comparisons I could make to the settings I use in my books would be the settings used in the books of authors who live within the country.
Some of them, like Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Rosa, Rubem Fonseca and Patricia Melo have been translated.
Most of them have not.
I am, as far as I know, the only writer of crime novels set in Brazil currently writing in English.
How would you describe the way you introduced this setting to readers of your story?
In some of my books, and Dying Gasp is no exception, I move from setting to setting.
The novel begins in, of all places, Amsterdam. (Another place I know well. And another place in which I speak the local language, having lived there for five years of my life.)
Something happens at the beginning of the book that indicates that a heinous crime has taken place in Brazil.
And the Brazilian Federal Police are called in.
One of the reasons I chose to make my protagonists federal cops is because they have a national mandate, so I can move them all over the country.
And since there is no DEA in Brazil, and no FBI, and no ATF and no Secret Service, the “feds” have to do it all – which means they get involved with all sorts of crimes.
It all flows very naturally, but it doesn’t take long before they’re there.
How would you describe the integration of characters and setting in this story?
The characters and the setting are entirely integrated. The nature of the business (the prostitution of minors) tends to give rise to characters who are, in my opinion, unique to their place and time. Read it, and see if you don’t agree with me.
How would you describe the interaction of story and setting in this story?
Can you imagine a story like Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose occurring anywhere else than in an isolated medieval monastery?
I can’t.
And I can’t imagine the story in Dying Gasp occurring anywhere else except in the northern part of Brazil.
It has to be the northern part. What happens in the book couldn’t happen in the southern or central part of the country.
I needed to set the crimes in Manaus to make it “true”.
How much research did you do for the setting of this story, and what did that involve?
I have lived in Brazil, on and off, for many years. My wife is Brazilian, as are three of my children and four of my grandchildren. The language we speak among us is Brazilian Portuguese. I consume Brazilian newspapers, magazines and television. And I have two Brazilian friends who are cops – and they’ve have enabled me to tag along on murder investigations. The crime rate in the country being what it is, I have also been a victim a few times – as has almost everyone in my wife’s (very extended) family. I have personally known four people who’ve been murdered. And I have visited every place I put into any of my stories.
Occasionally, I have to look something up on the internet, but that’s about the extent of my research.
Living it, seems to do the trick for me.
To what extent would you describe the setting of this story typical or atypical of the settings in your fiction stories?
Dying Gasp is entirely typical. But, if you elect to read it, I suggest you read Buried Strangers first.
The reason being that a particularly nasty character is introduced in the latter book who goes on to do evil in the former.
All of my other books can be read out of sequence.
These can too.
But I think the reader’s enjoyment will be enhanced by taking them in order.
Now, here’s the thing: almost all of the action in Buried Strangers takes place in the city of São Paulo.
And that’s a long, long way from Manaus.
So, even though many of the characters are the same, the location and the story are very, very different.
How do you usually decide on or develop a setting for your fiction stories?
I’ve just completed my sixth novel dealing with investigations by the Brazilian Federal Police.
And, since I intend to write more in the series, hopefully many more, there’s no longer any question about the country in which my stories take place.
That said, it’s a HUGE country, larger than the continental United States, and it’s topographically and climatologically diverse.
I can take readers to the bustle of São Paulo, or drop them down into the swamps of the Pantanal.
I can have my villains drown their victims in Guanabara Bay or fling them from the heights of the Sugar Loaf.
When I sit down to write a new book, the first thing I always ask myself is “where am I going to bring my readers this time?”
I make the choice based upon touristic interest, but also what I can write about it from a cultural or historical prospective.
Because I want my fans to get a cracking good story.
But also to learn something about Brazil along the way.
To what extent do the settings of novels you read have an impact on why you read them, and why?
Setting, to me, is of enormous significance.
And often critical when it comes to choosing a book.
My grandfather was a Yankee sea captain who married late.
And when I was very young, and he was very old, he’d sit on my bed and tell me stories about the places he’d been and the things he’d seen.
It instilled me with a wanderlust that’s never quite been slaked.
I wound up visiting more countries than almost everyone I know, and my lust for travel spilled-over into my choice of novels.
I’m drawn, for example, to international crime fiction.
I seldom care about cops who work in Los Angeles, or Chicago.
But I’m a sucker for cops who work in Mumbai, or London.
And I love well-researched fiction that enables me to travel backward in time.
As good historical fiction does.
Author website: www.leightongage.com
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