A Chief Inspector Mario Silva Investigation Series

The Awana tribe, who live in the remote Amazon jungle in the Brazilian state of Pará, have dwindled to only 41 members—and now 39 of them have dropped dead of what looks like poison. The neighboring white townsfolk don’t seem to be mourning the genocide much—in fact, the only person who seems to care at all is Jade Calmon, the official tribal relations agent assigned to the area. She wants justice for the two survivors, a father and his 8-year-old son. But racism is deeply entrenched and no one is going to help her get to the truth.

Unfortunately, this is far from the first time the Brazilian federal police have had a tribal genocide to investigate. Chief Inspector Mario Silva and his team are sent in from Brasilia to try to solve the increasingly complex case just as a local white man is discovered murdered. Someone has done their best to frame the surviving Awana man, and the town is about to erupt.

Chief Inspector Mario Silva and his team have a heavy work load with several high-profile cases. First, a suicide bombing that was apparently the work of a militant Islamist group. Then, a gubernatorial candidate is assassinated in broad daylight at a campaign rally. Could the cases be related? To complicate Silva’s investigation, a criminal with a very bad grudge against the Chief Inspector has been released from prison and is plotting ugly revenge.

It is the eve of the FIFA World Cup, the globe’s premier sporting event. The host country is Brazil. A victory for the home team is inextricably linked to the skills of the country’s principal striker, Tico “The Artist” Santos, the greatest player in the history of the sport. All the politicians in Brasilia, from the President of the Republic on down, have their seats squared-away for the finale, when they hope to see Argentina, Brazil’s bitterest rival, humbled by the Brazilian eleven. But then, just three weeks before the first game, Juraci Santos, Tico’s mother, is kidnapped. The star is distraught. The public is appalled. The politicians are outraged. And the pressure is on Chief Inspector Mario Silva to get her back.

Suspects aren’t lacking. Among them, are a cabal of Argentineans, suspected of having spirited the lady away to put Tico off his game, the star’s gold-digging, top-model girlfriend, whom his mother dislikes and has been trying to get out of his life, his principal rival, who wants to play in the World Cup in Tico’s place, and the man whose leg Tico broke during a match, thereby destroying his career. In the end, Silva and his crew discover that the solution to the mystery is less complex – but entirely unexpected.

It is the eve of the FIFA World Cup, the globe’s premier sporting event. The host country is Brazil. A victory for the home team is inextricably linked to the skills of the country’s principal striker, Tico “The Artist” Santos, the greatest player in the history of the sport. All the politicians in Brasilia, from the President of the Republic on down, have their seats squared-away for the finale, when they hope to see Argentina, Brazil’s bitterest rival, humbled by the Brazilian eleven. But then, just three weeks before the first game, Juraci Santos, Tico’s mother, is kidnapped. The star is distraught. The public is appalled. The politicians are outraged. And the pressure is on Chief Inspector Mario Silva to get her back.

Suspects aren’t lacking. Among them, are a cabal of Argentineans, suspected of having spirited the lady away to put Tico off his game, the star’s gold-digging, top-model girlfriend, whom his mother dislikes and has been trying to get out of his life, his principal rival, who wants to play in the World Cup in Tico’s place, and the man whose leg Tico broke during a match, thereby destroying his career. In the end, Silva and his crew discover that the solution to the mystery is less complex – but entirely unexpected.

The son of the Venezuelan Foreign Minister is found dead in his apartment in Brasília, the victim of a crime of passion, or so it seems. Due to the high-profile nature of the case, Chief Inspector Mario Silva of Brazil’s Federal Police is called in to investigate. As he delves deeper, he discovers that a chain of murders have occurred throughout Brazil, all with the same MO. They seem to be the work of the same killer—but the victims, of diverse ethnicities, cities of residence, economic classes, and walks of life, have nothing in common. What sinister motive connects these killings?

The granddaughter of a prominent politician is missing. Silva and his team find her in Manaus, a jungle hellhole on the Amazon where an evil female doctor is making gory snuff films. Silva must overcome his own department’s indifference and the corrupt local cops before he can obtain a semblance of justice for the victims.

The second Mario Silva investigation

In the woods on the outskirts of São Paulo, Brazil, a dog unearths a human bone, buried recently. Chief Inspector Mario Silva of the Federal Police and his team of investigators are called in from Brasilia and discover a clandestine cemetery. And then another. Someone has secretly disposed of the bodies of hundreds of human beings, their corpses often interred in family groups. To get to the bottom of these heinous deeds, Silva must navigate a twisted and dangerous web of politics, corruption, and greed.

The first book in Leighton Gage’s critically acclaimed police procedural series set in Brazil, now available in paperback at the special introductory price of $9.99
 
Chief Inspector Mario Silva of Brazil’s Federal Police is a good cop in a bad system—Brazil’s justice system is rife with corruption, and constantly a beat behind criminal elements. But Silva and his team of colorful sidekicks—baby-faced Gonçalves, who is irresistible to lady witnesses; chubby, crass Nuñes; Mara Carta, the chief of intelligence with a soft spot for Mario—crack their difficult and sometimes ugly cases with pizazz.
 
In the interior of Brazil, landless workers battle the owners of vast fazendas. When a visiting archbishop is assassinated, Mario Silva is called upon to investigate. Then a newspaper owner, a TV journalist, a landowner’s son, and a priest are brutally killed. In a country where dead street kids are known as “hams,” justice is scarce.