Hotel Brasil

by Frei Betto, Soutar (Translator)

Overview

According to the police, the victim was stabbed in the heart before the head was separated from the body. As the investigation continues other hotel clients are decapitated, usually with the head found delicately balanced on the knees of the sitting victim. A witty, touching account of life at the edge of Brazilian society, dressed up as a murder mystery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781908524287
Publisher:	Bitter Lemon Press, Ltd
Publication date:	02/24/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	547 KB

About the Author

Frei Betto: Frei Betto, born 1944, is a Brazilian writer, political activist, liberation theologian and Dominican friar. He was imprisoned for four years in the 1970s by the military dictatorship for smuggling people out of Brazil. In addition to work on eliminating hunger in Brazil, Frei Betto is involved in Brazilian politics. He worked for the government of President Lula da Silva as an advisor on prison policy and child hunger. This is his first novel.

Jethro Soutar: Jethro Soutar, born in Sheffield, lives in London and has recently published two works of non-fiction, 'Ronaldinho: Football's Flamboyant Maestro' and a part biography, part chronicle of a film movement, entitled 'Gael García Bernal and the Latin American New Wave', published in July 2008. Soutar translated Needle in a Haystack by Ernesto Mallo for Bitter Lemon Press.

Editorial Reviews

03/01/2014
Cândido Oliveira, freelance writer and advocate for street children, resides at the Hotel Brasil in Rio de Janeiro. Troublingly, one of the other residents has been murdered; his severed head is posed mockingly on the corpse. Olinto Del Bosco, the investigating detective, is baffled, and after questioning everyone, makes an arrest that only makes the police look inept. Meanwhile, Cândido's publisher hires him to work with a group of sexologists; the experience is uncomfortable but Cândido is in love with one of the researchers. He also rescues a young street girl, and her plight becomes part of the story line, too. The residents feel safe in their hotel, and yet the killings continue. Del Bosco despairs of figuring out the motive, much less who the murderer is. VERDICT Betto, a Brazilian political activist and Dominican friar, has crafted an unusual, noir-infused novel, written in short bursts, staccato style. While not entirely successful in its execution—the ending drops off precipitously and the detective is absent for much of the novel—it is a refreshing piece of satire, with nods to Voltaire's Candide (and maybe to Sweeney Todd).

Library Journal

01/13/2014
Set in a dilapidated Rio de Janeiro hotel, Betto’s first novel reads like a satire of an English country house mystery, as interpreted by Pedro Almódovar. When the head of one of the hotel residents, an aging gemstone trader, turns up in a hallway with both eyes removed, the police summon bookish Cândido, who devotes much of his spare time to helping Rio’s orphaned street kids, for interrogation. Other suspects at the hotel include Diamante Negro, a flamboyant, cross-dressing transformista; Madame Larência, a retired prostitute turned pimp; and Rosaura dos Santos, who dreams of becoming a telenovela star. Betto, a liberation theologian and former political prisoner, provides the backstories for each of these characters and more, at times at the expense of narrative pace. Of course, the crime solving matters less than the book’s revealing look at the marginalized underbelly of Brazilian society. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

“A wonderful classic mystery novel written to the best standards of the genre. Between layers of the investigation of an unsolvable crime and a display of suspicious characters, Betto slips in a view of the real Brazil, raw and bleeding.” Le Monde Diplomatique

“A fascinating kaleidoscope of contemporary Brazil.” Le Monde

“A roman noir, but above all a bitter sweet novel, Hotel Brasil plunges the reader into the heart of a Rio that feeds on its people” Metro

From the Publisher

2014-02-04
In Betto's debut thriller, a killer is loose in a Rio de Janeiro residential hotel. "Rooms for single ladies and gentlemen. Family environment," announces the sign Dona Dinó has hung outside the Hotel Brasil. And indeed her guests—political aide Rui Pacheco, aspiring telenovela actress Rosaura dos Santos, journalist Marcelo Braga, retired puta Madame Larência, cross-dressing nightclub singer Diamante Negro—feel like family in their combination of community, reserve and selective dislike. But the family comes under attack when retired salesman Seu Marçal, who still peddles the odd gemstone, is stabbed to death and relieved of first his eyes and then his head. Delegado Olinto Del Bosco, head of the Delagacia da Lapa, can think of no better approach to police work than to arrest hotel caretaker Jorge Maldonado and beat a confession out of him. And retired professor Cândido Oliviera, a hotel resident who's the logical candidate to serve as a more effective detective, is distracted by his long-running concern for the neighborhood's street kids, especially the glue-sniffing 11-year-old Beatriz, and his new professional collaboration with acclaimed anthropologist Mônica Kundali, which would surely blossom into love if only he could beat back his schoolboy shyness. As it is, no one takes the investigation firmly in hand, leaving the "Lapa Decapa" free to move on to other hotel residents, though not before first-timer Betto has provided incisive back stories for each of them. Intertwines absurdly understated violence with a reflective portrait of the city and its types so anthropologically precise that you'll mourn each new victim—and that's a lot of mourning.

Kirkus Reviews