Brazilian Psycho

Thomas’s frenzied final entry in his São Paulo quartet (after Playboy) charts the social and political upheaval of the rise of the populist right in Brazil from 2003 to 2019. Mario Leme, a rookie police detective, investigates the murder and subsequent cover-up of a British headmaster found bound in his home. Ray Marx, a former CIA operative turned freelance fixer, is instrumental in using dark money to influence the growth of the populist platform. Rafa Nascimento, a street kid, slowly rises among the ranks of a crime syndicate, PCC, against the wishes of his grandma, who’s trying in vain to keep him off the same path as his incarcerated father. Rafa’s entanglement grows as gentrification threatens the stronghold of the PCC’s drug and gun operation. The numerous plots and subplots can be confusing, not to mention the abrupt shifts of points of view among the many characters. Fans of Don Winslow and James Ellroy’s epic forays into the societal effects of systematic dysfunction and corruption will want to check this out. Agent: Will Francis, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Apr.)